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TRENDS  OK  CIVILIZATION  AND  CULTURE 


Other  Books  By 
CHARLES  GRAY  SHAW 


ROADS  70  CULTURE 
CHRISTIANITY    AND    MOOttRN    CUI/rtf 
THK    VALUK   AND    DIGNITY    ()!'    HUMAN 
THK   WJO   AND    ITS   PhAt'H    JN    Til!';    W 
THE   CiHOtJND   AND  OOAI,   OF   HUMAN 
SIIOET  TALKS  ON    f^Y 

OUTLINI-:  or 

CHRISTIANITY    AND   MOOKKN   CtU.T 


TRENDS   OF  CIVILIZATION 
AND   CULTURE 


BY 

CHARLES  GRAY  SHAW,  PH.D. 

PROVttflHOR  OK   niaoHOPHY,   NttW  YORK  I'NIVKROTY 


i 


AMERICAN  1KX)K  COMPANY 

NEW   YORK  CINCINNATI  CHICAGO 

BOSTON  ATLANTA 


COPYRIGHT,  1932,  BY 
AMERICAN  BOOK  COMPANY 


All  Rights  Reserved 


TRENDS   OF  CIVILIZATION   AND   CULTURE 
E.   P.   I. 


MADE  IN  U.S.A.. 


780672 


THIS  WORK  WAS  WRITTEN  UPON  THE  OCCASION 
OF  THE  CENTENARY  OF  NEW  YORK  UNIVERSITY 


PREFACE 


A  STUDY  OF  CIVILIZATION  IS  NO  NOVELTY.     FROM  THE  BEGINNING 
of  human  history,  if  not  in  the  pre-historic  period,  man  has 
shown  such  interest  in  himself  as  to  record  his  deeds  and 
thoughts.    Hence  the  concern  for  civilization  shown  by  our  con- 
temporaries is  not  wholly  different  from  that  of  fossil  men  in  the 
geologic  past,  while  the  enthusiasm  that  Americans  feel  for  their 
cities  is  fairly  well  matched  by  similar  emotions  in  the  hearts  of 
Aurignacian  men,  who  were  proud  of  their  caves. 

In  addition  to  recording  his  activities,  man  has  rationalized 
them;  hence  we  have  the  intensive  studies  of  civilization  as  found 
in  the  writings  of  Polybius  and  St.  Augustine,  Hegel  and 
Spengler,  to  say  nothing  of  certain  impressionistic  works  which 
have  appeared  since  the  World  War.  In  the  present  work,  it  has 
been  the  intention  of  the  author  to  come  to  an  understanding 
with  the  present,  although  not  to  the  extent  of  discussing  "  what's 
wrong  with  the  world  "  or  "  what  this  country  needs." 

The  pursuit  of  the  present,  as  carried  on  in  the  following  pages, 
has  necessitated  a  consideration  of  the  past  even  unto  the  forma- 
tion of  the  planet  whereon  civilization  has  been  set  up.  For  the 
civilization  that  is  now  bearing  fruits  both  bitter  and  sweet  is 
deeply  rooted  in  the  past.  The  range  of  this  book  is  that  of  west- 
ern civilization  although,  as  will  appear  toward  the  close  of  it, 
the  East  has  not  been  overlooked. 

The  sources  of  this  study  of  civilization  and  culture  have  been 
varied  but  none  too  many  and  they  have  been  duly  noted.  But 
in  addition  to  aid  from  books,  the  author  has  been  helped  by 
certain  of  his  colleagues  at  New  York  University.  He  is  in- 
debted to  the  following  scholars  for  material  assistance  in  the 
connections  mentioned:  Floyd  A.  Spencer,  Ph.D.,  Greek  Culture 
and  Roman  Civilization;  Charles  C.  Thach,  Ph.D.,  Feudal  Civili- 
zation; G.  Roland  Collins,  A.M.,  The  Economic  View  of  Civiliza- 
tion; Albert  Sheppard,  A.M.,  The  Industrial  Form  of  Civilization; 
Younghill  Kang,  Sc.B.,  The  Eastern  Question;  Rudolph  M. 
Binder,  Ph.D.,  The  Present  Outlook;  Vincent  Jones,  A.M., 


viii  PREFACE 

Contemporary  Music;  and  E.  Herman  Hespelt,  Ph.D.,  Spanish 
Culture. 

The  author  desires  to  make  special  acknowledgment  of  aid  re- 
ceived from  his  daughter,  Winifred  Clarke  Shaw,  A.B.,  who  con- 
tributed liberally  to  the  chapters  on  Hebrew  Religion  and  The 
Religious  Trend  of  Modern  Life  and  rendered  valuable  assistance 
by  correcting  both  manuscript  and  proof. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I.  THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MAN  i 

The  Solar  System-— The  Earth  — A  Terrestrial  Point  of 
View  —  The  Origin  of  Life  —  The  Life  Process  —  Amphibians 
and  Reptiles  —  The  Mammals  —  The  Origin  of  Man  —  Fossil 
Men  —  Homo  Sapiens  —  Life  and  Food  —  Food  and  Brain  — 
The  Human  Brain  —  Brain  and  Mind  —  Man  the  End  of 
Creation  —  The  Liberation  of  Consciousness  —  The  Emer- 
gence of  Mind 

II.  THE  HUMANIZING  OF  MANKIND  .25 

The  Discovery  of  Man  —  The  Free  Brain  —  Emancipation 
through  Industry  —  Industry  and  Intellect  —  The  Effect  of  Art 

—  Art  as  Play  —  Art  as  Expression  —  The  Development  of 
Language  —  Social  Life  and  Humanity  —  Family,  Village,  City 

—  Totemism  —  The  Natural  and  the  Supernatural  —  Animism 

—  Magic  —  Survivals  of  Primitive  Belief  —  The  Nature  of  Hu- 
manity —  The  Emancipation  of  Man 

III.  THE  FACTORS  IN  CIVILIZATION  50 

The  Meaning  of  Civilization  —  The  Point  of  Departure  — 
Nature  and  Humanity  —  Instruments  and  Institutions  —  Cause 
and  Purpose  —  The  Double  Task  of  Civilization  —  Determin- 
ism —  Physical  Causation  —  Social  Determinism  —  Determin- 
ism Inadequate  —  Civilization  and  Progress  —  What  Progress 
Means  —  Past  and  Present  —  Stages  of  Progress  —  Standards 
of  Progress  —  Physical  and  Moral  Progress 

IV.  FORMS  OF  CULTURE  75 

The  Meaning  of  Culture  —  Culture  and  Civilization  —  Cul- 
ture and  Humanity  —  Culture  Contrasts  —  Animality  and  Hu- 
manity —  The  Immediate  and  the  Remote  —  Conquest  and 
Contemplation  —  Outer  Existence  and  Inner  Life  —  Oppo- 
nents of  Culture  —  Culture  and  Work  —  Culture  and  Democ- 
racy —  Decadence  and  Dilettantism 

ix 


x  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

V.  HEBREW  RELIGION  99 

Judaism  and  Christianity  —  The  Origin  of  the  Hebrews  — 
The  Call  of  Abraham  —  The  Hebrews  in  Egypt  —  The  Career 
of  Moses  —  The  Exodus  —  Moses  as  Legislator  —  Hebrews  and 
Hittites  —  The  History  of  the  Kings  —  The  Kingdom  of  David 

—  Davidic  Literature  —  Solomon's  Temple  —  Babylonian  Exile 

—  The  End  of  Jewish  Nationalism  —  Hebrew  Culture  —  The 
Prophets  and  the  Law  —  The  Hebrew  Idea  of  God  —  Hebrew 
Conception  of  Religion 

VI.  GREEK  CULTURE  125 

Greek  and  Hebrew  —  The  Classic  Conception  of  the  Greeks 

—  Versatility  of  Greek  Genius  —  Mythology  and  City-State  Re- 
ligion—  Gods  and  Men  —  High  Gods  and  Low  —  Priesthood 
and   Sacrifice  —  Belief   in    Immortality  —  Greek    Science   and 
Philosophy  —  Greek  Mathematics  —  Medical  Practice  —  Natu- 
ral Science  —  Greek  Politics  and  Education  —  The  Individual 
and  the  City-State  —  Greek  Education  —  Greek  Philosophy  — 
Political  Theory  —  The  Forms  of  Greek  Literature  —  Greek 
Tragedy  —  Greek  Aesthetics 


VII.  ROMAN  CIVILIZATION  158 

Greece  and  Rome  —  Roman  Religion  —  Roman  Deities  — 
Roman  Philosophy  —  Latin  Science  —  Roman  Medicine  —  Ap- 
plied Science  —  Law  and  Government  —  Roman  Bureaucracy 
—  Deification  of  the  Emperors  —  The  Romans  as  Artists  and 
Builders  —  Architecture  —  Construction  and  Decoration  — 
Aqueducts  —  Latin  Language  and  Literature  —  The  Persistence 
of  Latin  —  Popular  Literature  —  Satire 


VIII.  CHRISTIANITY  187 

"The  Second  Empire  "  —  Christian  Culture  —  Christianity 
and  Classicism  —  Christianity  a  "  Culture  Conquest  "  —  The 
Essence  of  Christianity  —  The  Gospels  and  the  Epistles  —  The 
Religion  of  Christ  —  Paulinism  —  Two  Tendencies  in  the  Gos- 
pels—The Political  Interpretation  of  Christianity  —  The  Psy- 


CONTENTS  xi 

PAGE 

chology  of  Christ's  Mind  —  Christ  no  Reformer  —  Christ  and 
Money  Power  —  God  and  Caesar  —  The  Ideal  Kingdom 

IX.  FEUDAL  CIVILIZATION  212 

The  Origin  of  Feudalism  —  Land  Tenure  —  Political  Feu- 
dalism—  Feudal  Law  —  The  Truce  of  God — The  Power  of 
the  Pope —  Church  and  State  —  The  Secular  Power  of  the 
Church  —  The  Essence  of  Feudalism  —  Lord  and  Vassal  — 
Feudal  "  Anarchy  "  —  Feudal  Economics  —  Feudal  Ethics  — 
Fief  and  Town  —  Agriculture  and  Commerce  —  Feudalism  and 
the  Crusades 

X.  SCHOLASTIC  CULTURE  234 

The  Nature  of  Scholasticism  —  The  Scholastic  Method  — 
Scholastic  Culture  —  The  Gothic  Era  —  The  Rise  of  Universi- 
ties—  The  University  of  Paris  —  Mediaeval  Realism  —  Real- 
ism Today  —  Modern  Nominalism  —  The  Fusion  of  Paganism 
and  Christianity  —  Aquinas  and  Aristotle  —  Roger  Bacon  — 
Dante  —  The  Old  Scholasticism  and  the  New 

XL  THE  EMERGENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  MIND  259 

Are  We  Modern? — Features  of  Modern  Thought  —  The 
Art  of  Printing  —  Modern  Painting  —  The  Spirit  of  the  Renais- 
sance —  The  German  Reformation  —  The  Ecclesiastical  and  the 
Economic  —  Protestantism  and  Capitalism  —  Calvinistic  and 
Puritan  Economics  —  The  Copernican  Revolution  —  Modern 
Mechanism  —  Galileo  and  Modern  Science  —  Classic  Physics  — 
Modern  Dualism  —  Mind  and  Matter  —  Freedom  and  Mecha- 
nism —  The  Encyclopedic  Tendency  —  Modern  Ideologies 

XII.  MODERN  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  289 

The  Magic  of  Science  —  The  Value  of  Science  —  Friend  or 
Foe? — The  Social  Character  of  Science  —  Is  Science  Subjec- 
tive? —  Man  the  Measurer  of  All  Things  —  Our  Fourth  Dimen- 
sion—  Science  More  than  Measurement  —  The  Unity  of 
Things  __  The  Scientific  Paradox  —  Physical  and  Social  Science 
—  Relativity  —  The  Space-Time  Continuum  —  Matter  and 
Gravity  —  The  New  Atom — Man  Remains  Unchanged 


-  CONTENTS 

^^  PAGE 

XIII.  THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PHILOSOPHY  3X4 

Everyman's  Philosophy  —  No  Philosophic  Field  —  The 
Ground  of  Things  —  The  Spirit  of  Intellectualism  —  Plato  and 
Aristotle— -The  Goal  of  Life  — Ancient  and  Modern  Art  — 
The  Problem  of  the  Soul —  The  Modern  View  —  Empiricist 
and  Rationalist  — tf  priori  and  a  posteriori  —  Pragmatism  — - 
Philosophy  and  Politics  —  Tests  of  Pragmatism 

XIV.  THE  POLITICAL  FACTOR. IN  MODERN  CIVILIZATION    338 

The  Consent  of  the  Governed  —  Plato's  Republic  — The 
Realization  of  the  Republic  — Man  a  Political  Animal  — The 
Best  State  —  Democracy  —  Post-Classic  Politics  —  The  Chris- 
tian State— Modern  Political  Theory  —  Protestant  Politics  — 
The  State  of  Nature  — The  War  of  All  Against  All— Pessi- 
mistic Politics  — The  Historical  View  —  Rousseau's  Romantic 
Politics  — The  Social  Contract  —  The  General  Will  — The 
American  Conception  —  The  Political  and  Economic  —  Dicta- 
torial and  Democratic  Government 

XV.  THE  SOCIAL  CONCEPTION  OF  LIFE  368 

The  Social  and  Political  —  The  Anti-Social  View  — The 
Opposition  to  Egoism  —  The  Ideal  of  Sympathy  —  The  Social 
View  of  Man  —  Modern  Sociology  —  Social  Science  —  The  So- 
cialization of  Life  —  The  Socialization  of  Work  —  Socialized 
Labor— The  Socialization  of  Morality  —  The  Social  Ideal  in 
Literature  —  The  Thesis-Drama  —  Individualism-Opposition  to 
the  Social  —  The  Personal  Protest  —  Nihilism  —  The  Inade- 
quacy of  the  Social 

XVI.  THE  ECONOMIC  VIEW  OF  CIVILIZATION  395 

How  Economics  Arose  —  Money-Making  —  Greek  Merchants 
and  Philosophers  —  Roman  Economics  and  Laws  —  Money  in 
the  Middle  Ages  — Modern  Mercantilism  —  The  Physiocrats 

—  The    Economists  —  Laissez    Faire  —  The    Socialists  —  The 
Critical  School  —  The  Historical  School  —  The  Mathematical 
School  —  The  Psychological  School  —  The  Institutional  School 

—  Theoretical  Difficulties  —  The  "New  Era" 


CONTENTS 


Xlll 

PAGE 


XVII.  THE  INDUSTRIAL  FORM  OF  CIVILIZATION          424 

Industry  Old  and  New  — Causes  of  the  Revolution  —  The 
Soil  —  Scientific  Farming  —  The  Enclosed  Farm  —  Enclosure 
Acts  — Man  and  Machine  —  Looms  New  and  Old  — Steam 

—  Coal  and  Iron  —  Steel  —  The  Railroad  —  The  Steamboat  — 

—  The  Industrial  Revolution  on  the  Continent  —  The  German 
Awakening  —  American  Industrialism  —  The  New  House  of 
Bondage  —  "  Progress  and  Poverty  "  —  Labor  Legislation 

XVIII.  THE  RELIGIOUS  TREND  OF  MODERN  LIFE         453 

Contemporary  Religion  —  English  Deism  —  Natural  Religion 
and  Natural  Rights  —  Free  Thought  and  Toleration  —  Ra- 
tional Christianity  —  The  Downfall  of  Deism  —  German  Phi- 
losophy of  Religion  —  Kant  —  Hegel  —  Schleiermacher  —  Con- 
flict of  Science  and  Religion  in  America  —  Astronomy  —  Bi- 
ology and  Evolution  —  Higher  Criticism  —  New  Testament 
Criticism  —  The  Fourth  Gospel  —  Comparative  Religion  — 
The  Psychology  of  Religion  —  The  Social  Gospel  — The  Social 
Creed  —  Humanism 

XIX.  THE  PLACE  OF  ART  IN  CONTEMPORARY  CIVILIZATION      482 

The  Art  of  Architecture  —  American  Architecture  —  Sculp- 
ture and  Civilization  —  Modern  Sculpture  —  How  Painting 
Pictures  Civilization  —  Studio  Technique  —  Modern  Painting 
and  Physics  —  The  Anthropological  Tendency  —  Two  Effects 
of  Painting  —  The  Progress  of  Painting  to  the  Present  —  Con- 
temporary Music  —  French  and  German  Composers  —  New 
Chords  —  American  Composers  —  Up-to-Date  Poetry  —  The 
Poetic  Renaissance  of  1912  —  The  Range  of  American  Verse 

—  Tender  Bards  — The  Women  Poets 

XX.  THE  VALUES  OF  CIVILIZATION  510 

Man  a  Valuing  Animal  —  Value  and  Energy — Oriental 
Values  —  The  Christian  Idea  of  Worth  —  Modern  Theories  of 
Value  —  Form,  Piety,  and  Force  —  Value  and  Human  Life  — 
What  is  Value?  —  Value  as  Pleasure  —  Value  and  Desire  — 
Values  and  Desiderata  —  The  Desires  of  the  Nations  —  Our 


xiv  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Seven  Deadly  Values  —  Communication  —  Speed  —  Entertain- 
ment —  Health  —  Psychology  —  Sex  —  Youth  —  New  Values 
Needed 

XXL  TYPES  OF  NATIONAL  CULTURE  537 

Culture  Personal  and  National  —  Greek  Culture  of  Beauty 

—  The   Greek   Language  —  Classicism  —  Roman   Culture    of 
Dignity  —  Roman  Culture  and  Civilization  —  The  Latin  Lan- 
guage —  Italian  Culture  and  the  Renaissance  —  Realism  of  Ital- 
ian Culture  —  The  Dilettantism  of  French  Culture  —  Gallic 
Skepticism  —  The    Continuity   of   English    Culture  —  English 
Poetry  —  Persistence  of  the  Poetic  Principle  —  The   Sporadic 
Nature   of  German   Culture  —  Goethe   as   Culture  Pattern  — 
Dogmatic  Character  of  German  Culture  —  The  Two  Epochs 
of  Spanish  Culture  —  Don  Quixote  —  The  Picaresque  Novel 

—  Russian  Culture  and  Nihilism  —  The  Russian  Novel  —  The 
Values  of  Russian  Culture  —  American  Culture  an  Aspiration 

—  The  Mental  Melting  Pot  —  Emerson  as  Culture  Prophet 


XXII.  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION  569 

The  Orient  Awakens  —  East  and  West  —  Old  China  —  The 
Sons  of  Han  —  Contacts  of  East  and  West  —  Westerners  Go 
East  —  The  Rise  of  Orientalism —  French  Interest  in  China  — 
Eastern  and  Western  Thought  —  The  Study  of  Chinese  Lit- 
erature—  Oriental  Pessimism  —  P'olitical  Approaches  to  the 
East  —  Eastern  Trade  —  How  China  Awoke  — China  and 
Japan  —  Our  Asiatic  Relatives  —  India  Today  —  Hindu  Indus- 
try—What Does  India  Want?  -—Can  India  Govern  Herself? 


XXIII.  THE  PRESENT  OUTLOOK  596 

The  So-Called  Present  —  From  Century  to  Century  —  The 
World  War  —  Economic  Losses  —  Figures  Written  in  Red  — 
Ideal  Losses  —  Europe  Since  the  Armistice  —  Political  Activi- 
ties —  Economic  Enterprises  —  Russia's  Five  Year  Plan  —  The 
League  of  Nations  —  Other  Pacific  Movements  —  Social  Ef- 
fects of  the  War  —  Aeronautics  —  The  American  Skyline  — 
Moving  Pictures  —  Popular  Science  —  Laxity  in  Morals  —  The 
Status  of  Woman  —  Prohibition  —  Urban  Life  —  Capitalism 


CONTENTS 


xv 

PAGE 


and   Communism  —  The  End  of  Immigration  —  Present  Se- 
riousness 

XXIV.  THE  RESULTANT  VIEW  OF  HISTORY  624 

The  Meaning  of  History  —  Periods  and  Trends  —  Historical 
Coherence  —  Past  and  Present  —  The  Inadequacy  of  Facts  — 
Facts  and  Truths  —  Historical  Methods  —  The  Linear  Method 
—  The  Circular  Method  —  The  Pendular  Method  —  The  Spiral 
Method  —  "  The  Decline  of  the  West "  —  Spengler's  Method  — 
The  Two  Keys  to  History  —  Three  Types  of  Culture  —  Civili- 
zation and  Machinery  —  Sovietism  and  Caesarism  —  One  Cul- 
ture or  Many  — A  Nation's  Culture  and  its  Soul— -Is  the 
Machine  a  Frankenstein  Monster? 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

facing  page 

Detail  from  the  Ceiling  of  the  Sistine  Chapel.    Michelangelo  .  iii 

The  Great  Nebula  in  Andromeda.    Photograph  by  Roberts    .     .  5 

Primitive  Art  from  the  Ceiling  of  the  Altamira  Cave  in  Spain  .  32 

Earliest  Extant  Writing,  from  the  Tomb  of  Menes  at  Abydos  .  32 
Prehistoric  European  Pottery,  Found  in  Excavations  of  a  Lake 

Dwellers'  Village 32 

Egyptian  Hieroglyphics  and  Carving 56 

Fragment  of  the  Prisse  Papyrus,  in  Hieratic  Writing,  Found  in 

Upper  Egypt 56 

Early  Press 56 

Modern  Automatic  Rotary  Press 56 

Caravan  of  Canaanites,  about  1900  B.C 104 

Ancient  Egyptian  Painting  of  Captives  Working  in  a  Brickyard, 

about  1600  B.C 104 

Carving  on  the  Temple  at  Abydos,  Showing  Amorite  Auxiliaries 

of  a  Hittite  Army 104 

Solomon's  Temple 113 

Ruins  of  the  Parthenon  on  the  Crown  of  the  Acropolis  .     .     .  137 
Section  of  the  "  Panathenaic  Procession,"  from  a  Frieze  in  the 

Parthenon 157 

The  "  Fates,"  from  the  Eastern  Pediment  of  the  Parthenon  .     .  157 

The  Arch  of  Trajan 176 

Roman  Forum  and  Surrounding  Buildings 176 


xvi  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

facing  page 
Roman  Aqueduct  near  Nimes  (Ancient  Nemausus),  Southern 

France 180 

Ruins  of  the  Colosseum,  the  Arch  of  Titus  in  the  Foreground  .  180 

The  Altar  in  the  Basilica  of  St.  Paul 196 

Feudal  Castle  on  the  Moselle  River 224 

Feudal  Warfare 224 

Fagade  of  the  Cathedral  of  Rheims 237 

Cannon  of  the  Fifteenth  Century 240 

Fragment  of  Caxton's  Printing  from  his  Edition  of  the  Prologue 

to  Virgil's  Aeneid 240 

Notre  Dame  Cathedral,  Paris 240 

"  Moses."    Michelangelo 265 

Detail  from  the  "  Last  Supper."   Leonardo  da  Vinci   ...  265 

Philosophers  of  Athens.   Raphael 345 

Greek  Smithy,  Painted  on  a  Grecian  Vase 437 

Modern  American  Steel  Mills 437 

"Wolf  and  Fox  Hunt"   Rubens 489 

"  Christ  on  Lake  Gennesaret."  Delacroix 489 

"  A  Wheelwright's  Yard  on  the  Banks  of  the  Seine."  Corot      .  496 

"The  Forest  of  Fontainebleau."  Cezanne 496 

The  Doge's  Palace,  Venice 548 

Senate  Chamber  in  the  Doge's  Palace 548 

The  Great  Wall  of  China,  Built  about  214  B.C 577 

Temple  of  Confucius,  Peking,  China  : 577 

Dilwarra  Temple,  Mt  Abu,  India 592 

Japanese  Print,  from  an  Old  Woodcut 592 

Airplanes  Maneuvering 597 

The  Liner  Manhattan,  in  the  Hudson  River  ......  597 

The  Empire  State  Building,  New  York  City 612 

Brooklyn  Bridge  and  the  New  York  Skyline 612 


CHAPTER  I 
THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MAN 


THE  SOLAR  SYSTEM 

p  "'I  ^HE  SUBJECT  OF  CIVILIZATION  AND  CULTURE  IS  MAN;  THE  SECRET 
I  of  what  man  has  done  and  thought  is  to  be  found  in  the 
JL  history  of  mankind  The  study  of  marf  by  man  —  that 
identifies  the  matter  and  indicates  the  manner  of  such  a  study  as 
we  are  about  to  take  up.  Other  factors  will  enter  in  to  give  hu- 
man life  its  more  complete  setting,  and  we  shall  have  to  consider 
the  earth  in  its  divisions  of  sea  and  land,  life  in  its  enormous  span 
of  time  between  protoplasm  and  the  man  of  the  present.  Other 
forces  than  human  volition  will  be  found  in  operation,  gravita- 
tion and  energy,  electricity  and  life;  but  it  is  the  nature  and  work 
of  man  which  most  concerns  us.  We  desire  to  discover  whence 
man  came  and  whither  he  is  tending,  how  he  has  worked  and 
what  he  has  accomplished.  Thus  we  investigate  the  trends  of 
civilization  and  culture. 

The  seat  of  man's  activities  is  the  planet  earth.  Other  planets 
in  our  solar  system,  that  private  park  in  the  universe,  may  be 
thought  inhabited.  Other  stars  than  our  sun  may  be  imagined 
to  have  their  planets  spinning  around  them.  On  these  solar  and 
stellar  planets  there  may  be  conscious  life  akin  to  our  own,  but 
we  are  responsible  for  only  what  we  observe  and  experience  in 
one  tiniest  speck  of  matter  in  the  whole  universe.  It  is,  of  course, 
the  only  habitable  place  we  know  and,  perhaps,  the  only  spot  we 
dare  dream  of  as  supporting  life.  At  any  rate,  it  is  here  without 
our  immediate  ken,  a  stage  upon  a  stage,  that  the  drama  of  hu- 
man life  is  acted.  Earth  may  not  have  been  made  for  man,  but 
it  is  here  that  he  has  learned  how  to  live.  He  draws  his  suste- 
nance from  plants  and  other  animals;  these  are  fed  by  the  earth 
and  the  earth  itself  is  supplied  with  such  foodstuffs  in  the  form 
of  solar  energy.  In  the  last  analysis,  man  is  fed  by  the  sun. 

How  are  planets  produced?  They  might  seem  to  have  come 
from  the  stars  by  a  process  of  excessive  rotation  casting  off  gaseous 


2  THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MAN 

matter.  This  was  the  nebular  hypothesis  advanced  by  Laplace, 
only  to  be  discarded  for  a  more  plausible  view.  This  is  the  tidal 
conception  of  Sir  James  Jeans  according  to  which  the  planetary 
matter  was  drawn  off  by  a  gravitational  process  pretty  much  as 
the  waters  of  the  sea  are  drawn  away  in  the  form  of  tides  by  the 
moon.  In  the  universe  the  excessive  rotation  of  a  star,  which  was 
supposed  to  have  generated  the  solar  system,  is  not  unusual  and 
it  is  quite  common  for  stars  to  be  split  up  in  this  way.  But  the 
effect  of  such  fissioning  has  been  stellar.,  not  planetary.  The  stars, 
or  about  a  third  of  them,  experience  the  effect  of  rotation  by  split- 
ting into  double  stars,  creating  binary  systems.  But  in  the  case  of 
"  our  star/'  as  we  may  call  the  sun,  there  seems  to  have  been  no 
such  surplus  of  centrifugal  force,  no  tendency  to  split  up  into 
celestial  twins.  Something  quite  different,  extremely  exceptional, 
must  have  happened  in  our  part  o£  the  universe* 

What  did  happen,  it  is  conjectured,  was  the  approach  of  some 
wandering  star  which  carne  close  to  the  region  that  was  destined 
to  be  our  solar  system.  There  it  exercised  tidal  influence  and  drew 
off  a  filament  of  solar  stuff  which  broke  up,  as  it  were,  into  so 
many  planetary  drops*  In  this  manner,  the  passing  star  became 
the  father  of  the  planetary  family.  Two  forces  have  been  and  still 
are  at  work  in  the  heavens  —  the  rotational  and  the  tidal.  One  has 
produced  double  stars,  the  other  a  planetary  system.  "  We  know 
of  myriads  of  double  stars,"  says  Eddington,  "  and  of  only  one 
planetary  system.  .  .  .  The  solar  system  is  not  the  typical  prod- 
uct of  development  of  a  star;  it  is  not  even  a  common  variety  of 
development;  it  is  a  freak." 1  It  is  this  "  freak  "  of  Creation  that 
interests  us.  This  vulgar  fraction  of  the  universe  represents  the 
field  of  our  investigation. 

THE  EARTH 

If,  then,  we  can  whittle  the  range  of  life  down  to  the  confines 
of  our  solar  system,  can  we  bring  the  matter  to  a  point  by  asserting 
that  it  is  on  the  planet  earth  alone  that  life  is  findable?  This  also 
seems  to  be  the  most  likely  idea  in  the  case.  Life  depends  upon 
the  sun.  Some  planets  are  too  close,  others  too  far  from  this 
source  of  heat  to  be  habitable.  Inside  the  earth's  orbit  is  Venus, 

1  The  Nature  of  the  "Physical  World,  p.  1 7  6. 


THE  EARTH  3 

outside  it  is  Mars,  and  in  a  general  way  the  conditions  of  life  at 
these  points  may  seem  to  be  analogous  to  what  we  actually  find 
on  the  earth.  As  far  as  Venus  is  concerned,  the  general  situation 
seems  to  be  maritime  and  its  atmosphere  vaporous,  so  that,  if  it 
be  inhabited,  it  must  be  by  creatures  different  from  what  we  are 
now;  it  must  be  a  place  where,  as  Eddington  says,  "  fishes  are 
supreme."  Unlike  Venus,  the  planet  Mars  has  solid  land  and  an 
atmosphere  containing  oxygen,  but  no  seas.  Moreover,  its  climate 
is  so  chilly  and  with  such  sharp  differences  between  the  tempera- 
ture of  day  and  night  that  it  is  difficult  to  accept  the  idea  that 
Mars  harbors  life  in  our  sense  of  that  term.  "  There  is  no  defi- 
nite evidence  of  life,"  says  Jeans,  "  and  certainly  not  of  conscious 
life,  on  Mars  ...  or  indeed  anywhere  else  in  the  universe."2 
Earth  alone  appears  to  be  the  place  of  conscious  life. 

But  after  we  have  detached  the  planet  earth  and  located  life 
upon  it,  there  remains  the  rest  of  the  universe.  What  shall  we  do 
with  it?  We  will  set  aside  the  earth  as  the  place  of  culture  and 
civilization  and  relegate  the  rest  to  mathematics  and  mechanics. 
'*  The  world  is  made  up  of  human  beings  and  astronomers,"  says 
Harlow  Shapley;  very  well,  then,  we  human  beings  will  stick  to 
our  private  planet  and  let  the  astronomers  consider  the  heavens. 
But  in  all  this  we  should  not  be  appalled  by  any  idea  of  size  that 
the  astronomer  may  hold  up  before  us,  and  should  be  unusually 
careful  in  applying  the  adjective  "  infinite  "  to  what  looks  like  a 
finite  universe.  The  situation  in  the  skies  and  the  latest  report 
from  the  observatories  are  such  as  to  make  the  whole  universe 
appear  small  indeed.  Science  is  now  talking  about  the  "  radius 
of  space."  Eddington's  estimate  includes  a  hundred  million  light- 
years;  Hubble  made  his  estimate  equal  a  million  million.  In 
either  case,  the  farthest  reaches  of  space  are  within  our  mathemati- 
cal grasp. 

By  a  process  of  mental  arithmetic,  we  can  figure  that,  since 
light  travels  six  million  million  miles  in  a  year,  it  will  travel  some- 
what over  five  thousand  times  that  number  of  feet.  Once  we 
have  a  light-year  in  the  form  of  feet,  we  can  reduce  the  distance 
to  inches  and  fractions  thereof.  The  result  is  that  the  radius  of 
the  universe,  expressed  in  terms  of  razor-blade  edges,  yields  a  sum 

2  The  Universe  Around  Us,  p.  322. 


4  THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MAN 

made  up  of  comparatively  few  figures.  The  row  of  such  digits 
would  extend  only  half  way  across  the  page  along  a  single  line  of 
this  book.  In  the  case  of  one  computation,  thirty  figures  would 
suffice,  while  the  other  would  require  only  thirty-five.  As  far  as 
the  size  of  man  is  concerned,  if  we  measure  this  by  a  comparison 
with  the  macroscopic  universe,  man  is  bound  to  appear  small,  but 
let  him  contrast  his  dimensions  with  those  of  the  electron  and  he 
will  appear  correspondingly  large.  We  may  conclude,  therefore, 
that  since  man  is  of  about  average  size  in  the  total  universe,  there 
is  no  reason  to  belittle  his  being  or  think  lightly  of  his  work. 

A  TERRESTRIAL  POINT  OF  VIEW 

But  this  line  of  popular  reasoning  is  not  to  be  taken  as  a  return 
to  any  manlike  view  of  the  universe,  or  anthropomorphism.  It 
will  be  sufficient  to  assume  that  the  earth  is  good  enough  as  a 
viewpoint  for  considering  the  universe,  just  as  it  will  be  safe  to 
conclude  that  man  is  able  to  grasp  the  meaning  of  things  gener- 
ally. In  some  ways  it  does  look  as  though  the  advanced  science 
of  the  XXth  century  had  thrown  us  back  upon  a  geocentric  posi- 
tion and  an  anthropocentric  point  of  view  as  these  restricted  out- 
looks prevailed  up  to  the  beginning  of  modern  times.  But  if, 
again,  we  assume  those  limited  points  of  view,  it  is  only  after  we 
have  surveyed  the  whole  galaxy  in  which  we  live  and  thus  are 
like  returned  tourists  who  appreciate  the  advantages  and  disad- 
vantages of  home-life  after  they  have  been  abroad  for  an  extended 
tour.  Since  we  realize  that  all  depends  upon  the  point  of  view, 
we  may  make  due  allowance  for  this  and  avoid  misconceptions. 
If  we  were  placed  on  Vega,  we  should  take  a  Vegan  viewpoint 
and  regard  the  whole  heavens  as  though  they  revolved  about  us 
there.  If,  as  in  the  case  of  Copernican  astronomy,  the  standpoint 
is  the  sun,  we  take  a  solar  point  of  view.  But  being  actually  lo- 
cated upon  the  earth,  we  view  the  universe  from  a  terrestrial  van- 
tage point,  realizing  that  our  outlook  is  not  an  absolute  but  a 
relative  one.  We  take  man  where  we  find  him. 

Our  subject  is  man,  his  arts  and  sciences,  languages  and  laws, 
beliefs  and  customs.  But  we. cannot  pass  at  once  from  the  forma- 
tion of  the  earth  to  the  development  of  civilization.  We  must 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  LIFE  5 

wait  for  the  earth  to  cool  down  and  prepare  itself  for  organisms, 
watch  for  the  emergence  of  life  from  the  sea,  note  the  develop- 
ment of  animal  existence,  the  evolution  of  mammals,  and  the  final 
appearance  of  crude  mankind.  We  shall  have  difficulty  in  mak- 
ing the  transition  from  matter  to  the  organism,  and  that  difficulty 
will  occur  again  when  we  attempt  to  pass  from  animal  existence 
to  human  life.  It  will  not  be  easy  to  abide  by  the  dogma  that  the 
world  permits  no  leaps;  if  these  have  not  been  taken  by  nature 
herself  they  will  have  to  be  taken  by  us  in  our  study  of  the  world. 
We  must  be  prepared  to  consider,  not  one  missing  link  as  that 
between  the  ape  and  man,  but  such  a  number  of  them  that  the 
blank  spaces  in  the  panorama  are  far  more  numerous  than  those 
occupied.  Our  program  is  —  from  sun  to  earth,  from  earth  to 
life,  from  life  to  man,  from  the  man  of  the  present  to  the  being 
who  is  going  to  continue  or  destroy  our  civilization.  Suppose  we 
begin  by  glancing  at  life  with  the  hope  of  gaining  some  hint  as  to 
our  own  existence.  In  doing  this  we  must  observe  how  life  arose, 
what  was  the  general  course  of  its  development,  and  what  is  sig- 
nificant in  the  emergence  of  the  human  species. 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  LIFE 

We  are  accustomed  to  use  the  word  "  life  "  in  a  nobly  narrow 
sense  to  indicate  the  existence  of  the  human  family  on  earth  or 
even  the  history  of  civilization.  That  we  take  to  be  the  life  of 
man  and  it  is  just  that  which  forms  the  ultimate  object  of  our 
present  study.  But  the  life  principle  within  man,  that  out  of 
which  he  has  developed  arts  and  sciences  and  the  manifold  forms 
of  his  civilization  and  culture,  has  had  such  a  long  history  that 
the  life  of  humanity  seems  no  more  than  the  twinkling  of  an  eye. 
Hence,  before  we  can  study  man  as  he  has  appeared  in  history,  we 
must  investigate  life  as  it  is  known  in  geology.  Nature  must  be 
allowed  to  relate  a  long  story  before  man  can  tell  his  little  tale. 
We  must  seek  the  living  among  the  dead  and  view  the  brightness 
of  the  present  in  the  darkness  of  the  past. 

By  studying  the  remains  of  former  living  things  we  begin  to 
understand  those  that  live  now.  Such  fossils  as  the  entombed 
bones  of  animals  in  the  bedded  rocks  or  shell-forms  of  creatures 


6  THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MAN 

that  once  lived  on  the  sands  o£  the  sea-floor,  enable  the  geologists 
to  restore  the  life  assemblages  of  the  geologic  periods.  These 
trace  back  in  time  for  hundreds  of  millions  of  years.  The  age  of 
the  earth  is  set  by  geologists,  as  also  by  astronomers,  at  something 
like  2,000  million  years.  The  rocks  abundantly  supplied  with 
fossils  are  in  a  long  series  which  carries  us  back  to  a  period  of  at 
least  half  that  length  of  time.  Such  is  the  age  of  the  earth  on 
which,  as  though  it  were  yesterday,  the  history  of  humanity  has 
been  conducted.  The  life  of  man  in  the  larger  sense  of  the  term 
is  far  more  recent. 

What  was  the  origin  of  the  life-process  that,  beginning  a  hun- 
dred million  years  ago,  is  still  felt  by  us  in  our  breathing,  in  our 
immediate  experience  of  our  surroundings?  We  can  reply,  but 
cannot  give  answer  to  that  question,  by  saying  that  we  do  not 
know.  If  our  ignorance  is  devout,  we  may  follow  tradition  and 
attribute  the  origin  of  life  to  a  divine  source;  but  still  we  should 
be  confronted  by  the  question  how  that  miraculous  life  came  into 
existence.  With  such  scientists  as  Helmholtz  and  Lord  Kelvin, 
we  might  think  of  life  as  having  come  to  earth  in  the  form  of 
meteorites  or  meteoric  dust,  but  that  would  amount  to  no  more 
than  a  change  of  venue.  We  should  still  have  to  inquire  how  life 
came  into  existence  elsewhere.  Or  we  might  follow  Sir  Ray 
Lancaster  and  look  upon  life  as  a  happy  combination  of  proteids 
in  a  colloid  state  which  itself  had  come  out  of  a  natural  synthesis 
of  inorganic  substances.  But  here  again  we  should  wonder  how 
that  happy  combination  came  about.  The  best  we  can  do,  per- 
haps, is  to  speak  of  life  as  something  that  emerges  from  inorganic 
matter,  realizing  that  our  explanation  is  nothing  more  than  a 
description  of  some  inscrutable  process.  We  cannot  assert  that 
the  principle  of  life  is  radically  different  from  every  other  form 
of  physical  existence,  as  though  there  were  some  extra  element 
called  "  vita  "  or  "  bios,"  yet  we  cannot  deny  that  the  outcome  of 
life  has  been  different  from  the  effects  observed  in  connection 
with  inorganic  matter.  Life  means  growth  and  out  of  this  grow- 
ing life  has  come  man. 

Our  subject  is  man  and  his  development,  his  exterior  civiliza- 
tion and  interior  culture.  In  proceeding  from  the  generation  of 
the  earth  to  the  evolution  of  its  leading  inhabitants,  we  are  like 


THE  LIFE  PROCESS  7 

travelers  on  an  express  train,  their  minds  intent  upon  their  des- 
tination, their  eyes  observing  the  way  stations  through  which  the 
train  passes  without  stopping.  Nevertheless  we  desire  to  take 
cognizance  of  our  route  more  for  the  purpose  of  assuring  our- 
selves of  the  evolutionary  line  than  with  the  idea  of  indicating 
stages  along  the  path  it  follows.  What  was  the  origin  of  life? 
Or,  if  we  do  not  care  to  meet  that  profound  question  directly, 
what  views  of  this  origin  are  we  expected  to  assume?  These 
seem  to  center  in  the  idea  of  novelty,  as  though  life  were  some- 
thing new  in  the  inorganic  universe.  If  we  cannot  assert  that 
life  means  a  new  substance  or  a  new  energy,  we  may  feel  assured 
that  it  represents  a  new  and  unusual  combination  of  old  elements. 
As  far  as  the  life  process  is  concerned,  we  may  assume  with 
Osborn  that  "  living  matter  does  not  follow  the  old  evolutionary 
order,  but  represents  a  new  assemblage  of  energies  and  new  types 
of  action."  3  What  course  has  this  taken  in  arriving  at  man  ? 

To  answer  that  question  would  be  to  trace  out  the  genealogy  of 
a  multitude  of  species  and  encounter  various  conflicting  schools 
of  geology  and  biology.  We  start  with  the  lifeless  earth  and  the 
equally  lifeless  sea  upon  its  surface  and  follow  the  view  that  "  life 
originated  on  the  continents,  either  in  the  moist  crevices  of  rocks 
or  soils,  in  the  fresh  waters  of  continental  pools,  or  in  the  slightly 
saline  waters  of  the  bordering  primordial  seas."  4  We  seem  to 
find  the  origin  of  life  in  or  near  the  sea  and  let  the  biologist  show 
us  that  the  life  elements  in  both  sea-water  and  blood  serum  are 
pretty  much  the  same,  as  though  the  sea  were  a  fine  medium  for 
organic  existence. 

THE  LIFE  PROCESS 

The  life  process  itself  seems  to  reveal  neither  continuity  nor 
abruptness,  but  a  graded  system  of  development  marked  by  leaps 
and  bounds  of  no  great  length.  Such  primordial  life  looks  like, 
more  than  anything  else,  a  grouping  of  life's  essential  elements 
in  an  aggregation  so  distinct  as  to  constitute  an  organism.  This 
primitive  thing  was  of  a  gelatinous  or  colloidal  character  involv- 
ing an  energy  which  had  not  existed  previously.  The  vital  char- 

8  The  Origin  and  Evolution  of  Life,  pp.  4-5. 
4  1*.,  p-  35- 


g  THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MAN 

acter  of  this  novel  form  of  matter  began  to  show  itself  when,  in 
addition  to  the  laws  of  physics  and  chemistry,  the  biological 
principle  of  Natural  Selection  entered  in.  From  then  on  the  story 
of  nature  became  more  thrilling,  the  plot  thickened,  and  the  most 
simple  kinds  of  life  assumed  a  highly  complex  form.  No  specific 
principle  of  vitality  showed  itself,  but  the  behavior  of  the  new 
organism  was  such  as  to  reveal  a  novel  form  of  existence  and  a 
new  way  of  handling  energy. 

Life  made  a  beginning  with  bacteria  which,  themselves  able  to 
find  food  and  store  up  energy  in  a  world  without  life,  prepared 
both  the  earth  and  the  sea  for  the  coming  of  plants  and  animals. 
These  bacteria  are  known  better  by  what  they  do  than  what  they 
are,  by  their  energy  rather  than  their  form.  In  the  beginnings  of 
life,  they  operated  between  the  chemical  stage  of  existence  and 
that  of  the  most  primitive  forms  of  life.  They  were  not  satisfied, 
we  might  say,  in  adapting  themselves  to  their,  lifeless  environ- 
ment; they  went  to  work  upon  the  earth,  decomposed  rocks  and 
formed  the  soil.  "  These  bacteria,"  says  Osborn,  "  were  at  once 
the  soil-forming  and  the  soil-nourishing  agents  of  the  primal 
earth;  they  throve  in  the  presence  of  energy-liberating  compounds 
of  extremely  primitive  character." 5 

The  work  of  forming  the  earth  for  the  appearance  of  life  was 
continued  by  the  primitive  algae,  seaweeds,  and  simpler  forms  of 
aqueous  vegetation.  These  primitive  forms  of  vegetable  life  have 
exhibited  remarkable  power  as  earth-forming  agents,  reef-builders, 
and  the  makers  of  ancient  limestones.  From  them  the  whole 
plant-world  spreads  out.  "  In  their  evolution,  while  there  is  a 
continuous  specialization  and  differentiation  of  the  modes  of  ob- 
taining energy,  plants  may  not  attain  a  higher  chemical  stage  than 
that  observed  among  the  bacteria  and  algae.  ...  In  the  energy 
which  they  derive  from  the  soil,  plants  continue  to  be  closely  de- 
pendent upon  bacteria,  because  they  derive  their  nitrogen  from 
nitrates  generated  by  bacteria  and  absorbed  along  with  water  by 
the  roots.  In  reaching  out  into  the  air  and  sunlight,  the  chloro- 
phyllic  organs  differentiate  into  the  marvelous  variety  of  leaf 
forms,  and  these  in  turn  are  supported  upon  stems  and  branches 
which  finally  lead  into  the  creation  of  woody  tissues  and  the 
5  The  Origin  and  Evolution  of  Life,  p.  84. 


AMPHIBIANS  AND  REPTILES  9 

clothing  of  the  earth  with  forests.  Through  the  specialization 
of  leaves  in  connection  with  the  germ  cells,  flowers  are  developed 
and  plants  establish  a  marvelous  series  of  balanced  relations  with 
their  life  environment,  first  with  the  developing  insect-life  and 
finally  with  developing  bird-life." 6 

Life  seems  to  consist  of  obtaining  food  and  storing  up  energy. 
In  the  case  of  animal  life,  this  energy  is  derived  indirectly  from 
plants,  or  from  both  bacteria  and  plants.  Science  cannot  tell  us 
exactly  when  animal  life  in  the  form  of  Protozoa  made  its  appear- 
ance on  earth.  It  may  have  been  during  the  period  of  the  primi- 
tive algae  or  may  trace  as  far  back  as  the  bacterial  epoch.  The 
animals  began  to  distinguish  themselves  from  the  plants  by  their 
powers  of  locomotion;  indeed,  we  might  go  so  far  as  to  say,  by 
behavior.  The  course  of  evolution  carries  us  from  the  single- 
celled  Protozoa  to  the  many-celled  Metazoa,  which  evince  a  more 
effective  locomotive  apparatus  in  that  fundamental  life-operation 
which  we  recognize  in  the  food-quest.  Here  among  the  Metazoa 
we  find  fast-  and  slow-moving  creatures;  the  one  with  superior 
means  of  propulsion,  the  other  covered  with  dense  armature  for 
defense.  To  the  eye  of  the  layman,  the  Sagitta  looks  very  much 
like  a  modern  submarine,  while  the  heavy  Trilobite  seems  to 
resemble  the  old-style  monitor.  Each  conducted  its  life-warfare 
or  struggle  for  existence  in  its  own  way. 

AMPHIBIANS  AND  REPTILES 

The  potentiality  of  living  matter  brings  life  closer  to  us  in  the 
form  of  the  Vertebrata.  The  structure  and  function  of  these  back- 
boned creatures  brought  about  a  release  of  animal  existence  from 
its  immediate  habitat  in  that  the  new  type  of  animal  was  able  to 
swim  in  the  water,  walk,  or  otherwise  move  on  the  land  and  fly 
in  the  air.  Accordingly  we  observe  the  appearance  of  fishes, 
amphibians,  reptiles,  birds,  mammals,  men.  Our  interest  seems 
to  be  drawn  toward  the  Amphibia,  since  they  knew  how  to 
effect  the  transition  from  sea-life  to  life  on  land.  This  required 
important  modifications  —  a  double  set  of  locomotive  organs,  as 
fins  and  legs;  a  double  equipment  of  respiratory  apparatus,  as 

6  /£.,  p.  105. 


I0  THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MAN 

the  old  gills  and  new  lungs.  We  recognize  such  a  duplex  crea- 
ture in  the  modern  salamander,  small-headed,  long-bodied,  and 
small-limbed,  adapted  to  either  swimming  or  crawling. 

The  attempts  of  the  Amphibia  to  adapt  themselves  to  sea-and- 
land  life  were  matched  and  surpassed  by  the  Reptilia.  We  are 
not  specially  interested  in  these  primitive  monsters,  although 
their  amphibious  existence  and  their  predatory  habits  cannot  help 
remind  us  of  certain  primitive  traits  in  our  own  human  life. 
But  we  must  observe  these  reptiles  since  they  are,  in  a  way,  our 
ancestors,  and  since  they  were  the  potential  ancestors  of  our  large 
mammalian  family.  Thus  our  life  must  be  viewed  as  passing 
through  the  reptilian  form.  There  seem  to  have  been  eighteen 
different  orders  of  these  creatures;  among  them  we  recognize  the 
turtles,  snakes,  and  lizards  of  our  own  experience;  the  ichthyo- 
saurs,  plesiosaurs,  and  dinosaurs  we  observe  in  museums.  Ap- 
parently nature  did  not  particularly  favor  the  forms  of  life  she 
had  produced  thus  far,  if  we  may  put  it  that  way,  but  was  pre- 
paring the  way  for  a  more  successful  life-form.  This  appeared 
in  the  family  to  which  we  belong  —  the  Mammalia. 

THE  MAMMALS 

"During  this  (Tertiary)  period  of  3,000,000  million  years," 
says  Osborn,  "  the  entire  plant  world,  the  invertebrate  world,  the 
fish,  the  amphibian  and  the  reptilian  worlds  have  all  remained  as 
relatively  balanced,  static,  unchanged,  or  persistent  types,  while 
the  mammals,  radiating  3  million  years  ago  from  very  small  and 
inconspicuous  forms,  have  undergone  a  phenomenal  evolution, 
spreading  into  every  geographic  region  formerly  occupied  by  the 
Reptilia  and  passing  through  multitudinously  varied  phases  not 
only  of  direct  but  of  alternating  and  of  reversed  evolution." 7 

When  we  distinguish  between  the  reptiles  and  mammals,  we 
do  so  by  observing  their  different  ways  of  producing  their  young, 
by  hatching  or  by  giving  birth  to  them;  that  is,  in  an  oviparous  or 
viviparous  manner.  If  we  wish  to  connect  the  two  types  histori- 
cally, we  call  attention  to  the  egg-laying  mammals,  the  Mono- 
tremata  of  Australia  and  New  Guinea,  recognizable  to  the  lay- 

7  The  Origin  and  Evolution  of  Life,  p.  231, 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  MAN  IZ 

man  in  the  form  of  the  spiny  anteater.  If  we  desire  to  fill  in  the 
evolutionary  gap  more  thoroughly,  we  make  mention  of  the 
pouched  mammals,  or  marsupials,  of  Australia.  In  our  own  opos- 
sums we  observe  the  way  in  which  these  marsupials  are  now  typi- 
fied. In  these  mammals  we  find  the  results  of  evolution,  whatever 
the  purposes  may  have  been.  We  observe  ten  great  branches  of 
the  original  stock,  including  whales,  seals,  and  sea-cows;  bats,  ro- 
dents, and  primates  like  ourselves.  These  covered  the  face  of  the 
earth  and  may  seem  to  have  been  the  heirs  of  Creation.  As  it  ap- 
pears now,  one  family  has  taken  possession  of  the  earth  and  is 
selecting  for  further  existence  such  types  of  mammalian  and  other 
life  as  seem  best  to  it.  That  is  the  peculiar  family  to  which  we 
belong,  the  human  one. 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  MAN 

Our  concern  is  with  the  human  species,  hence  we  have  referred 
to  the  origin  of  the  earth  and  the  appearance  of  life  on  its  surface 
only  for  the  sake  of  setting  man  in  bold  relief.  What  was  the 
origin  of  human  life  and  by  what  means  did  civilized  man  come 
into  existence?  Here,  again,  we  are  confronted  by  those  trouble- 
some questions:  "Whence?"  and  "How?"  Here,  again,  we 
are  tempted  to  let  the  experienced  fact  act  as  a  vehicle  for  the  im- 
plied cause  and  content  ourselves  by  saying,  "  Man  emerged  from 
the  general  order  of  life,  animal,  mammalian,  simian."  From 
the  standpoint  of  civilization,  man  seems  so  utterly  different  from 
other  animals  that  evolution  cannot  account  for  him  or  anthro- 
pology convey  the  content  of  his  life.  But,  since  we  wish  our 
development  of  human  civilization  to  be  as  fully  rooted  as  pos- 
sible, we  postpone  our  consideration  of  man's  cultured  traits  and 
survey  him  in  the  dim  light  of  his  long  natural  history.  In  order 
to  know  what  we  are  and  are  to  be,  we  must  observe  what  we 
have  been  and  were  at  the  very  beginning.  Hence,  we  pause  for 
a  moment  and  consider  man  in  the  form  of  fossil  remains  which 
may  have  some  message  for  us. 

The  fossil  population  of  the  globe  is  pathetically  scanty,  its 
members  widely  scattered,  and  their  family  resemblances  remote. 
Yet  they  also  were  men  and  it  may  be  that  some  of  their  early 


I2  THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MAN 

strivings  still  persist,  some  of  the  primitive  traits  remain  unto 
this  day.  Man  appeared  on  earth  500  thousand  years  ago;  in 
only  the  last  tenth  of  that  time  has  he  been  what  we  may  call  a 
human  being.  In  the  period  between  the  original  anthropoid  and 
man  as  we  know  him  today  we  find  a  few  hundred  skeletons, 
most  of  them  in  fragmentary  form.  It  is  not  a  question  of  dis- 
covering the  so-called  "  missing  link  "  ;  that  we  seem  to  have  in 
the  Java  man.  It  is  the  series  of  missing  links  between  these  fossil 
men  that  perplexes  us.  It  is  as  though  nature  had  made  a  moving , 
picture  film  one  hundred  miles  long  and  had  then  destroyed  all  of 
it  save  for  a  few  random  snapshots.  Of  these  isolated  exposures 
we  are  reasonably  sure;  of  the  whole  picture  we  must  conjecture. 
The  record  itself  was  made  in  different  parts  of  the  world:  in 
Java  and  China,  in  England  and  on  the  Continent.  We  must 
look  at  these  fossil  men  and  note  all  possible  human  resemblances. 

FOSSIL  MEN 

The  Java  man,  pithecanthropus  erectus,  is  the  oldest  fossil  man 
known  to  us  but  can  hardly  be  claimed  as  an  ancestor,  since  he 
represents  an  unusual  and  unprogressive  type.  What  we  actually 
know  of  him  amounts  to  the  upper  part  of  a  skull,  three  molars, 
and  a  femur  bone.  His  title  of  ape-man,  pithecanthropus,  is  am- 
biguous, but  he  seems  to  be  so  far  above  the  ape  that  the  human 
family  can  hardly  reject  him.  The  discovery  of  this  specimen  is 
a  fact  of  recent  history,  for  it  was  only  in  1891  that  he  was  un- 
earthed in  Trinil,  East  Java.  His  own  geologic  date  is  that  of 
the  earliest  Pleistocene  period.  The  significant  feature  of  the  Java 
man  is  not  his  head  but  his  feet.  He  had  the  ability  to  assume 
an  erect  posture  and  move  about  freely  on  earth.  "  Since  the 
human  type  of  leg  and  foot  is  already  present  in  the  oldest  known 
fossil  man,  it  is  clear  that  this  evolution  also  took  place  prior  to 
the  Pleistocene.  The  human  type  of  leg  and  foot  was,  then,  de- 
veloped long  before  the  human  brain  came  to  be  as  we  see  it 
now."8 

When  we  change  the  geologic  scene  from  Asia  to  Europe,  we 
observe  the  Piltdown  man,  discovered  in  1913  and  represented  by 

*  Pirsson  and  Schuchert,  Introductory  Geology  (1924),  p.  656. 


HOMO  SAPIENS  !3 

parts  of  a  skull  and  jaw,  a  human  skull  and  an  ape-jaw.  The 
head,  according  to  the  way  it  has  been  restored,  reveals  human 
features  as  far  as  the  forehead  is  concerned  and  indicates  a  brain 
capacity  not  much  below  that  of  the  average  European.  It  is 
the  lower  part  of  the  face  that  betokens  lack  of  human  develop- 
ment in  that  the  chin  is  wanting.  Something  resembling  weap- 
ons are  associated  with  this  type  of  man  who  is  known  by  the 
name  of  eoanthropus,  as  his  implements,  found  rather  than  made, 
are  called  eoliths.  Closely  related  to  eoanthropus  was  the  Heidel- 
berg man,  discovered  in  1907,  and  consisting  of  no  more  than  a 
jaw  with  all  of  the  teeth,  these  being  of  distinctly  human  form. 
The  unformed  human  face  is  signified  by  the  lack  of  a  chin. 

HOMO  SAPIENS 

The  Neanderthal  man  was  much  earlier  in  the  history  of  ge- 
ology, dating  back  to  1856,  but  ever  so  much  later  in  the  line  of 
the  human  series.  He  represents  an  approach  to  man  as  we  know 
him  and  is  significant  for  his  large  head  and  the  manufacture  of 
stone  implements  and  hearths.  The  use  of  fire  is  probably  the 
most  significant  factor  in  his  material  culture.  This  type  of  man, 
homo  primigenius,  was  succeeded  by  the  Aurignacian  man  who 
seems  entitled  to  the  name  of  homo  sapiens;  he  appeared  at  the 
dawn  of  human  civilization,  which  dates  back  to  less  than  20 
thousand  years  ago.  He  is  found  in  the  New  Stone  Age,  the 
Neolithic,  but  the  manufacture  and  use  of  stone  implements  is 
not  the  most  significant  feature  of  his  existence.  He  had  mastered 
the  art  of  fire  and  ate  cooked  food.  To  his  tool-making  he  added 
the  arts  of  pottery,  weaving,  basket-making,  and  spinning.  More 
significant  still  for  his  culture  were  his  sculpture  and  drawing, 
indicative  of  free  mentality  out  of  which  came  language  and  re- 
ligion also. 

When  we  look  back  upon  the  broken  record  of  mankind  as  this 
is  made  by  geology,  we  observe  that  the  skeletal  features  of  fossil 
men  were  not  altogether  different  from  our  own.  We  note  that 
from  the  beginning  the  ultimate  human  ancestor  had  a  human 
posture  and  gait  and  that,  in  time,  he  acquired  the  use  of  his 
hands  in  the  manufacture  and  manipulation  of  tools.  Himself 


I4  THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MAN 

wanting  in  the  mechanical  appliances  peculiar  to  so  many  other 
creatures,  man  had  to  make  his  own  machinery.  The  simplicity 
of  his  body  led  to  the  complexity  of  his  work.  In  his  development, 
the  most  marked  feature  was  his  head.  This  had  to  be  tilted 
forward,  the  brow  enlarged,  the  cerebellum  tucked  away,  as  it 
were,  under  the  cortex,  and  the  jaw  so  altered  as  to  project  the 
jawbones  in  the  form  of  the  chin.  "  Whatever  the  precise  cause 
may  have  been,"  says  Robert  Monroe,  "  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  gradual  formation  of  the  chin  has  had  a  striking  par- 
allelism with  the  progressive  stages  in  man's  intellectual  develop- 
ment ever  since  he  started  his  human  career."  9  It  has  taken 
nature  a  large  part  of  a  million  years  to  form  the  human  face. 
Perhaps  we  are  right  in  assuming  that  human  life  as  such  has 
just  begun,  since  the  period  of  human  existence  on  earth  is  very 
brief  in  comparison  with  the  age  of  the  earth,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  whole  universe. 

LIFE  AND  FOOD 

If  we  cannot  decide  how  life  arose,  we  may  be  able  to  tell  what 
it  is.  From  our  own  intuitive  experience  we  know  what  life  is 
like;  we  feel  it  within  us  as  a  sensation,  although  its  meaning  is 
far  from  clear.  From  the  physical  point  of  view,  life  appears  to 
exhibit  vital  phenomena  in  the  way  that  it  uses  energy.  Instead 
of  expending  this,  life  in  the  plant  tends  to  save  it  and  thus  re- 
tard the  degradation  of  energy  so  peculiar  to  the  inorganic  world. 
Chemically  viewed,  life  is  metabolism;  its  system  of  activity  is 
such  that  it  preserves  itself  in  the  midst  of  the  building-up  and 
breaking-down  process  of  organic  existence.  When  life  is  re- 
garded in  its  own  special  realm  of  biology,  it  shows  itself  to  be 
a  self-preserving  and  self-propagating  entity  capable  further  of 
growth  and  variability.  From  a  psychological  standpoint,  the 
vital  process  in  animals  involves  awareness  of  environment,  re- 
sponse to  stimuli,  and  purposive  behavior.  In  all  of  these  phases 
of  organic  existence  there  is  one  factor  that  should  not  be  over- 
looked; that  is,  the  need  of  food  common  to  plants  and  animals. 
Their  methods  of  obtaining  and  digesting  food  are  quite  different, 
9  Article  "  Anthropology,"  Encyclopedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics, 


FOOD  AND  BRAIN  I5 

but  their  need  is  common.  All  life  obtains  its  necessary  suste- 
nance from  the  sun. 

"  Earth,"  said  Anatole  France,  ce  is  the  planet  of  hunger,  the 
place  where  one  eats."  Life  means  food.  The  source  of  our  food 
supply,  as  we  have  said,  is  the  sun,  whose  solar  energy  the  plant 
acquires  from  the  air  above  and  the  soil  below  in  the  mineral 
form  of  carbon  and  nitrogen.  Since  the  plant  is  so  constituted 
that  it  can  create  organic  matter  out  of  these  mineral  elements,  it 
is  not  necessary  for  it  to  move  about  in  search  of  food.  This  it 
derives  directly  from  the  earth.  With  the  animal  it  is  otherwise; 
the  animal  must  feed  on  organic  matter  as  it  finds  this  in  the 
plant  or  other  animal  that  has  fed  upon  the  plant.  Hence  the 
animal  must  be  able  to  move  about  to  obtain  food;  to  move  about 
involves  the  existence  and  operation  of  a  motor  mechanism. 
We  are  in  the  habit  of  attributing  the  faculty  of  locomotion  to 
an  animal  as  though  it  were  a  sort  of  luxury  when,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  this  mobility  is  a  necessary  factor  in  the  all-imperative 
work  of  food-getting.  From  the  simplest  animal  down  to  the 
inhabitant  of  a  civilized  community,  the  primary  question  in  life 
is,  "What  shall  we  eat?" 

But  movement  is  not  of  itself  sufficient  to  constitute  and  sustain 
animal  existence.  The  movement  in  the  great  food-quest  must 
be  directed.  This  implies  a  sensory  mechanism  to  accompany 
and  act  as  a  guide  for  the  motor  one.  The  two  together  consti- 
tute the  nervous  system  of  the  animal,  and  the  nervous  system 
is  the  animal  par  excellence.  It  is  by  such  means  that  the  animal 
is  enabled  to  seek  food  and  supply  its  bodily  wants.  In  the  lowest 
type  of  animality,  this  may  not  be  the  nervous  system  as  such 
but  a  kind  of  combined  sensitivity  and  spontaneity  out  of  which 
the  cerebro-spinal  system  develops.  If  the  animal  does  not  have 
a  brain,  it  requires  the  equivalent  of  one. 

FOOD  AND  BRAIN 

Man  is  brain.  We  make  this  statement  in  view  of  the  biological 
facts  of  man's  life,  not  in  behalf  of  any  ideals  of  his  spiritual 
nature.  We  speak  of  man's  body,  not  his  mind.  And  when  we 
say  "  brain,"  we  refer  to  the  cerebro-spinal  nervous  system  as  this 


Z6  THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MAN 

branches  out  into  the  moto-sensory  system  with  its  terminations 
in  muscles  and  sense-organs.  This  extended  nervous  system,  pre- 
siding over  the  systems  of  respiration,  digestion,  circulation,  and 
the  like,  is  the  creature  itself  —  in  this  case,  man.  In  his  animal 
capacity,  man  is  placed  in  a  situation  akin  to  that  of  other  species; 
all  alike  require  food,  must  be  able  to  store  up  the  energy  the  food 
supplies,  and  be  in  a  condition  to  release  this  in  the  form  of  action. 
To  the  lay  mind,  it  looks  as  though  the  rest  of  the  body  were 
collecting  as  much  energy  as  possible  for  the  sake  of  the  moto- 
sensory  system,  in  order  that  the  animal  might  live  and  move 
and  realize  its  very  being.  The  proper  function  of  food  seems 
to  be  to  provide  energy  for  the  nervous  system,  hence  the  tissues 
of  nerve  and  muscle  are  copiously  supplied  with  glycogen.  Ap- 
parently the  nervous  system  must  be  kept  intact  and  in  operation 
for  the  sake  of  the  rest  of  the  organism.  The  effect  of  the  food 
is  felt  by  the  nerve  tissue.  Jonathan,  while  pursuing  the  Philis- 
tines, ate  of  the  honey  that  had  fallen  to  the  ground  "and 'his 
eyes  were  enlightened." 

When  we  stress  the  importance  of  food  in  sustaining  the  nerv- 
ous system,  we  do  not  mean  that  the  organism  is  merely  a  system 
of  nerves,  much  less  that  the  body  is  the  brain.  Food  is  meant 
to  supply  the  whole  organism  with  power  and  repair  its  tissues. 
But  alimentation  has  special  significance  for  the  nervous  system. 
The  situation  is  like  that  in  a  needy  household  wherein  the  head 
of  the  family  must  be  fed  at  all  costs,  even  i£  other  members  of 
the  household  have  to  endure  privation.  This  is  not  because  the 
head  of  the  family  is  more  important  in  himself  as  a  person.  It  is 
because  he,  in  his  capacity  as  bread-winner,  must  be  nourished  in 
order  that  by  means  of  work  he  may  supply  food  for  the  other 
members  of  the  little  group.  It  is  thus  that  the  body  is  ready  to 
demand  sacrifice  of  the  other  organs  in  order  that  the  brain  may 
be  fed. 

When  the  organism  is  deprived  of  the  food  that  supplies  it 
with  energy,  it  is  as  though  the  nervous  system,  the  first  to  be  fed, 
were  the  last  to  be  starved.  The  body,  like  the  family  of  depend- 
ents, seems  only  too  ready  to  make  sacrifices  for  the  sake  of  the 
organ  that,  like  the  head  of  the  house,  knows  how  to  seek  food 
and  obtain  it.  "It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  in  animals  that 


THE  HUMAN  BRAIN  I7 

have  died  of  hunger,  the  brain  is  found  to  be  almost  unimpaired, 
while  the  other  organs  have  lost  more  or  less  of  their  weight  and 
their  cells  have  undergone  profound  changes.  It  seems  as  though 
the  rest  of  the  body  had  sustained  the  nervous  system  to  the  last 
extremity,  treating  itself  simply  as  the  means  of  which  the  nervous 
system  is  the  end." 10  It  is  in  this  sense,  if  in  no  other,  that  there 
is  truth  in  the  materialistic  motto,  "  Man  is  what  he  eats  —  der 
Mensch  ist  was  er  isst"  Indeed,  the  question  of  food  is  so  im- 
portant on  "  the  planet  of  hunger  "  that  men  and  all  animals  exist 
only  as  they  eat.  Civilization  has  not  been  able  to  change  this 
radical  condition  of  human  life;  all  that  civilization  can  do  is  to 
afford  the  best  means  of  satisfying  human  hunger. 

THE  HUMAN  BRAIN 

We  find  in  the  emergence  of  mankind  something  more  than 
the  appearance  of  an  extra  species,  a  bipedal  mammal.  Man  is 
primarily  and  ultimately  mind.  In  his  brain  we  observe  some- 
thing more  than  an  organ  which,  itself  duly  fed,  enables  man  to 
seek  nourishment  for  his  body;  in  or  about  his  brain  we  observe 
a  specific  form  of  consciousness.  We  have  not  as  yet  come  to  the 
place  where  we  can  refer  to  the  human  mind  as  a  faculty  which 
has  developed  industries  and  institutions  to  promote  civilization 
and  culture.  As  far  as  we  have  advanced,  man's  mind  means  no 
more  than  a  large  and  superior  brain.  But  the  characteristic  of 
this  organ  is  found  in  its  function  as  well  as  in  its  form.  It  is  an 
organ  of  extreme  sensitivity  and  spontaneity,  being  something  su- 
perior to  the  mere  senso-motor  apparatus  found  among  animals 
generally.  If  we  compare  the  brain  of  man  with  that  of  the  ape, 
we  observe  a  difference  in  size  and  degree  of  complexity,  but 
these  quantitative  and  qualitative  differences  are  not  sufficient  to 
indicate  the  mental  gap  between  them.  Wherein  does  this  dif- 
ference consist? 

The  difference  between  the  two  brains  consists  primarily  in  the 
way  they  function.  We  might  indicate  this  by  pointing  to  the 
enormous  distinction  between  the  types  of  life  that  each  species 
leads;  the  life  of  the  ape  and  that  of  civilized  man.  There  can  be 

10  Bcrgson,  Creative  Evolution,  tr.  Mitchell,  p.  124. 
S.T.— 3 


!g  THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MAN 

no  question  about  the  ultimate  results  of  these  two  kinds  of 
cerebral  activity.  But  how  does  this  difference  appear  when  sub- 
jected to  psychological  examination?  Doubtless  in  connection 
with  memory.  Both  brains  retain  their  previous  impressions,  but 
in  the  case  of  man's  there  is  the  added  function  of  recollection 
whereby  man  is  able  to  conjure  up  a  past  state  and  hold  it  before 
his  mind  in  the  form  of  image.  There  is  a  marked  difference 
in  the  learning  process  also,  since  man,  with  his  freer  type  of 
memory,  is  able  to  invent  new  forms  of  activity  such  as  we  ob- 
serve at  the  beginning  of  his  career  as  a  tool-maker.  In  man  there 
is  a  free  process  of  learning  that  is  absent  from  the  brain  of  the 
ape.  It  is  true,  of  course,  that  animals  may  be  taught  both  tricks 
and  useful  forms  of  activity,  but  their  teacher  is  a  being  superior 
to  them.  In  the  case  of  the  human  brain  it  is  man  who  is  his 
own  teacher. 

Man  taught  himself  the  art  of  living  in  order  that  he  might  per- 
sist upon  the  planet.  This  meant  something  more  than  an  instinc- 
tive struggle  for  existence;  it  involved  a  certain  versatility  of  effort 
and  adaptability  of  nature.  Man  was  necessitated  to  seek  food  and 
prepare  it  and,  with  the  change  of  climate,  to  provide  home 
and  hearth-stone.  These  things  required  ingenuity,  manufacture, 
and  the  inventiveness  that  this  implies.  In  order  to  work,  man 
must  plan  by  picturing  the  object  he  desires  to  create  or  by  turning 
it  over  in  his  mind.  The  primitive  man  may  not  have  been  at  all 
like  The  Thinker  of  Rodin's  statue,  but  he  had  mastered  the  art 
of  thinking  up  to  the  point  of  its  usefulness  for  him.  Doubtless 
this  was  effected  largely  by  means  of  language,  which  is  a  sym- 
bolic form  of  activity.  After  man's  larynx  and  jawbone  had  as- 
sumed something  like  their  present  form,  the  development  of  lan- 
guage was  much  simpler  than  we  are  inclined  to  believe.  The  very 
exigencies  of  life  demanded  thought,  the  brain  was  forced  to  re- 
spond to  the  kind  of  activities  adopted,  and  the  mental  process  fa- 
cilitated by  the  art  of  speech.  The  human  body  became  a  psycho- 
physical  organization. 

BRAIN  AND  MIND 

This  biological  conception  of  man,  although  suggestive  of  man's 
unique  nature,  does  not  tell  the  whole  story;  the  rest  of  it  must 


BRAIN  AND  MIND  I9 

be  taken  up  by  psychology  in  order  that  we  may  appreciate  the 
nature  of  the  one  animal  species  which  creates  its  own  habitat  and 
proceeds  to  live  an  artificial  life.  Unless  we  differentiate  man 
from  other  animals,  his  civilization  and  culture  will  fail  to  convey 
the  idea  of  anything  significant.  We  may  be  able  to  apprehend 
these  as  facts  but  cannot  so  easily  appreciate  them  as  values,  and 
we  desire  both  the  real  and  the  ideal  in  one  if  that  be  at  all  pos- 
sible. Unless  we  are  sure  of  man  at  the  outset,  we  may  be  open 
to  attack  on  the  part  of  those  who  have  suggested  that  civilization 
is  a  disease  or  others  who  are  under  the  impression  that  it  is 
destined  for  a  downfall.  For  this  reason  we  cannot  afford  to  in- 
dulge in  a  sentiment  which  would  glorify  man  and  take  his  art 
and  religion,  his  civilization  and  culture  for  granted.  We  believe 
in  man  and  his  work,  but  must,  if  possible,  give  a  reason  for  the 
faith  that  is  in  us. 

In  placing  man  apart  from  the  other  animal  species  with  which 
his  origin  was  involved,  we  may  appeal  psychologically  to  the 
facts  in  the  case.  These  involve  man's  habitat  and  his  nature. 
At  first  man  took  these  for  granted  and  lived  pretty  much  as  did 
other  animals,  although  with  the  faint  presentiment  that  his  kind 
of  animal  life  was  different,  Man  exercised  about  his  world  a 
curiosity  which  has  culminated  in  the  scientific  conception  of 
nature  in  which  we  now  rejoice.  It  may  seern  strange  that  a 
product  of  matter  should  itself  come  to  the  degree  of  development 
by  which  it  summed  up  the  meaning  of  things  in  the  form  of  an 
astronomic  whole,  but  such  is  the  case  with  man.  He  has  been 
able  to  view  all  nature  in  the  character  of  a  systematic  whole 
whose  laws  he  has  formulated  with  such  perfection  as  to  justify 
Kant  in  saying  that  "  the  understanding  is  the  law-giver  of  na- 
ture." In  scientific  achievement,  the  superiority,  the  supremacy 
of  man  has  been  vindicated. 

The  same  contention  may  be  brought  forth  biologically  in  re- 
lation to  man's  origin.  Himself  a  product  of  the  evolutionary 
process,  it  seems  strange  to  think  of  man  as  raising  his  head  above 
the  stream  and  contemplating  it  as  a  whole;  but  is  not  such  actu- 
ally the  case,  and  does  not  the  theory  of  evolution,  which  is  man's 
idea,  justify  us  in  exalting  him?  -If  the  principle  of  Natural  Selec- 
tion, following  its  own  course  and  producing  the  human  species 


20  THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MAN 

among  others,  produced  man,  the  conduct  of  man  has  reached  a 
point  where  he  has  taken  his  evolution  in  his  own  hands.  For 
this  reason,  we  cannot  speak  of  the  evolution  of  civilization  in  the 
way  that  we  speak  of  the  evolution  of  the  human  species,  since 
the  course  of  civilization  has  been  directed  by  man's  own  will. 
Man  has  not  lifted  himself  by  his  own  bootstraps,  but  he  has  used 
nature  as  a  fulcrum  for  his  lever.  With  this  he  has  raised  his 
civilization* 

MAN  THE  END  OF  CREATION 

Is  man  to  be  esteemed  the  purpose  of  Creation?  He  acts  as 
though  this  were  the  case  and  it  is  only  when  he  indulges  in 
naturalistic  speculation  that  he  is  inclined  to  doubt  his  destiny. 
But,  for  the  purpose  of  placing  human  civilization  in  a  clear 
light,  we  need  do  no  more  than  assume  that  man  is  an  end  in 
Creadon.  Man  may  or  may  not  have  been  the  -finis,  or  last-comer, 
in  the  vertebrate  series,  but  we  may  still  regard  him  as  a  telos,  or 
end,  in  the  life-series  as  a  whole.  Inasmuch  as  the  process  of 
evolution  has  followed  more  than  one  line  instead  of  proceeding 
in  a  unilinear  manner,  other  ends  may  be  assumed  as  realized. 
Evolution  has  had  its  failures  and  successes,  but  in  the  case  of 
man,  whatever  the  purpose  may  have  been,  a  definite  result  has 
been  achieved  in  the  form  of  a  rational  creature  which  apparently 
has  made  itself  an  end  in  the  general  scheme  of  things.  This 
we  may  do  without  indulging  in  unguarded  dogmatism,  without 
assuming  any  philosophy  of  Finalism. 

In  the  case  of  man,  it  is  as  though  human  life  had  been  de- 
cided upon  as  an  objective  long  after  the  evolutionary  process 
had  been  under  way.  Now,  the  difference  between  a  complete 
Finalism,  with  its  dogmatic  idea  of  purpose,  and  the  general  con- 
ception of  ends  in  nature  is  the  diiference  between  the  games  of 
chess  and  checkers.  In  the  game  of  chess,  the  one  end  in  view, 
which  is  that  of  checkmating  the  king,  is  determined  at  the  be- 
ginning. No  matter  what  a  complexity  of  specific  moves  there 
may  be,  that  one  end  is  always  kept  in  mind.  In  the  game  of 
checkers,  on  the  contrary,  there  is  no  purpose  in  sight  at  the 
opening  except  the  general  idea  of  success,  of  winning  the  game. 
But  in  the  course  of  the  game,  a  promising  objective  arises  as  one 


THE  LIBERATION  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS        21 

out  of  a  hundred  or  more  possible  termini.  At  the  end  of  the 
game,  it  looks  as  though  that  had  been  the  original  purpose 
when,  in  fact,  it  was  only  an  objective  determined  during  the 
play  in  view  of  the  positions  of  the  pieces, 

It  is  thinkable  that  some  other  creature  than  man  might  have 
been  the  lord  of  Creation  or  that  the  evolution  of  man,  as  we  know 
it  now,  might  have  taken  some  other  course  and  produced  a  dif- 
ferent type  of  humanity.  But  the  fact  remains  that  evolution 
has  taken  the  course  that  we  now  recognize  as  the  one  that  has 
led  to  man  as  he  is,  just  as  it  is  a  further  fact  that  man  has  made 
himself  an  end  in  the  evolutionary  process.  The  development  of 
his  nature  and  the  organization  of  his  civilization  show  that. 
Hence  it  seems  idle  to  speculate  about  what  might  have  been  if 
nature  had  taken  some  other  turn.  Man  is  an  end  in  Creation, 
not  because  evolution  took  a  happy  turn  or,  as  if  to  celebrate  a 
holiday,  gave  special  privileges  to  one  species  above  all  the  others. 
Man  is  an  end  because,  seeing  his  opportunity,  he  decided  to 
place  himself  in  a  strategic  position.  "  It  is,"  says  Bergson,  "  as 
if  a  vague  and  formless  being,  whom  we  may  call  as  we  will  man 
or  superman,  had  sought  to  realize  himself,  and  had  succeeded 
only  by  abandoning  a  part  of  himself  on  the  way.  The  losses 
are  represented  by  the  rest  of  the  animal  world  and  even  by  the 
vegetable  world,  at  least  in  what  these  have  that  is  positive  and 
above  the  accidents  of  evolution." 11  Of  course,  it  was  necessary 
for  nature  to  grant  man  existence  and  endow  him  with  a  brain, 
but  the  use  of  his  brain  has  been  his  own  affair.  It  is  from  the 
fossil  skull  of  the  archaeological  man  to  the  living,  operative 
brain  of  the  human  being  that  we  must  turn  if  we  are  to  under- 
stand the  natural  evolution  and  humaif  expression  of  mind. 

THE  LIBERATION  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS 

The  human  brain  has  done  more  than  guide  the  human  species 
in  the  necessary  concerns  of  life,  as  food-getting.  It  has  expressed 
itself.  When  we  consider  the  human  brain,  we  observe  that  it 
unfolded,  so  to  speak,  in  the  form  o£  consciousness.  The  result 
has  been  the  human  world-order,  the  practical  civilization  and 
11  Creative  Evolution,  tr,  Mitchell,  p.  266. 


22  THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MAN 

intellectual  culture  of  the  human  race.  Before  we  can  present 
these  major  products  of  consciousness,  we  must  consider  how  the 
mind  delivered  itself  from  the  domination  of  the  body.  We 
must  note  how  the  mind  emancipated  itself  from  immediate 
necessities  to  the  fulfillment  of  remote  desires.  In  pure  science 
and  speculative  philosophy,  it  is  not  necessary  to  discover  by 
what  means  the  mind  liberated  itself  from  the  body.  In  those 
forms  of  intellection,  pure  mentality  as  an  ideal  arrangement  of 
thought  is  the  sole  consideration.  But  when  we  are  dealing  with 
the  natural  history  of  mankind  and  are  considering  how  man 
passed  from  nature  to  humanity,  the  psychophysical  issue  is 
bound  to  arise.  Hence  we  must  pay  tribute  to  nature  before  we 
can  feel  exempt.  After  that  we  can  proceed  to  the  methods 
whereby  man  as  man  humanized  his  own  nature,  and  then  ad- 
vance to  a  study  of  arts  and  sciences,  systems  of  thought,  and 
modes  of  civilization.  Just  how  is  the  mind  related  to  the  body? 
The  professional  view  of  the  problem,  as  we  may  call  it,  is  that 
of  psychophysical  parallelism.  This  was  Spinoza's  solution  of 
the  modern  problem  precipitated  by  Descartes.  It  amounts  to  an 
equipoise  of  mind  and  body,  or  so  much  of  the  psychological 
means  just  as  much  of  the  physical.  It  was  a  plausible  and  par- 
donable conception  at  the  beginning  of  modern  thought,  when 
the  physical  was  understood  in  a  purely  mechanical  way  and 
the  psychological  was  looked  upon  in  a  strictly  intellectual  man- 
ner. Descartes  and  his  followers  viewed  nature  in  a  schematic 
way;  hence,  their  conception  of  mind  and  body  was  that  of 
thought  and  extension.  The  parallel  between  such  a  cogitatio 
and  an  extensio  appeared  complete.  The  pattern  that  these  early 
thinkers  had  in  mind  ^as  that  of  a  framework  or  even  of  a 
system  of  pickets  running  up  and  down  between  the  lower  and 
upper  rails  of  a  fence.  What  the  brain  bound  was  bound  in  con- 
sciousness and  what  the  brain  loosed  was  loosed  in  consciousness. 
The  stimuli  projected  themselves  upward  in  the  form  of  sensa- 
tions, so  that,  to  understand  a  conscious  state,  one  needed  to  un- 
derstand only  a  cerebral  one.  This  was  the  practical  outcome  of 
the  theory  as  it  was  developed  in  the  XlXth  century  in  connec- 
tion with  physiological  psychology.  It  is  the  general  type  of 
psychological  reasoning  even  today. 


THE  EMERGENCE  OF  MIND  23 

We  are  required  by  the  facts  in  the  case  to  take  a  more  energetic 
view  of  both  the  physical  and  psychological  Nature  is  not 
merely  a  geometrical  scheme  which  imprints  itself  upon  the  mind 
as  though  thought  were  only  the  cogitation  of  extension.  Both 
the  physical  and  psychological  are  functional  and  operative  con- 
cerns. Mind  came  into  being  to  serve  the  movements  of  the  ani- 
mal in  its  quest  for  food,  not  to  mirror  the  universe.  It  may  be 
inseparable  from  the  body,  but,  as  Aristotle  pointed  out,  so  is 
the  sharp  edge  of  the  ax  from  the  blade.  The  two  are  inseparable, 
but  still  different. 

THE  EMERGENCE  OF  MIND 

Now,  experience  is  constantly  showing  us  that  consciousness 
does  not  sit  idly  waiting  for  stimuli  to  turn  up,  but  recalls  past 
sensations,  connects  them  with  others,  and  works  out  patterns 
which  are  not  in  any  wise  prefigured  in  the  brain  no  matter  how 
complex  its  structure.  Hence  it  seems  more  empirical  to  look 
upon  consciousness  as  a  kite  floating  about  in  the  free  air,  although 
its  flying  depends  upon  its  being  held  down  to  earth  by  a  string. 
There  is  indeed  a  connection  between  mind  and  body,  so  that 
one's  consciousness  may  be  said  to  travel  about  with  him  approxi- 
mately as  his  organism  does.  But  it  is  not  the  mere  possession  of 
a  brain,  still  less  the  brain's  possession  of  consciousness,  that  is 
significant  in  the  life  of  man,  but  the  way  man  uses  this  organ. 
He  keeps  it  open  to  new  impressions,  urges  it  to  put  forth  novel 
activities,  and  changes  its  original  status,  such  as  it  had  in  the 
animal,  from  master  to  slave.  It  was  the  power  of  invention  that, 
it  seems,  set  man  as  such  free  from  a  purely  anthropic  condition 
like  that  which  his  primitive  ancestors  experienced;  it  is  the  in- 
ventive in  man  that  has  led  him  into  the  ways  of  civilization  and 
culture. 

The  emergence  of  man  has  meant  something  more  than  the 
appearance  of  a  new  species;  it  has  amounted  to  the  entrance 
of  consciousness.  In  man  we  find  what  Schopenhauer  called 
"  knowledge  of  the  Will-to-Live,"  which  means  something  more 
than  the  awareness  of  objects  and  the  means  of  securing  food, 
It  means  the  condition  of  a  creature  which,  by  its  consciousness, 
detaches  itself  from  the  world,  measures  the  extent  of  the  uni- 


24  THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MAN 

verse,  and  analyzes  the  very  nature  of  matter  as  well  as  that  of  its 
own  soul.  This  consciousness  is  the  stuff  out  of  which  it  makes 
its  own  life,  its  civilization  and  culture,  its  very  humanity. 

Where  do  we  stand  now  in  our  preliminary  study  of  man? 
We  have  observed  how  the  earth  was  drawn  off  from  the  sun  at 
a  time  so  remote  that  a  terrestrial  -calendar  can  hardly  measure 
it.  We  have  seen  how,  after  the  planet  had  cooled,  life  began 
to  appear  in  the  crevices  of  the  rocks  and  how  in  the  long  course 
of  time  animal  life  emerged.  Man's  history  we  have  traced  or 
indicated  in  the  last  half  million  years  from  the  Man  Erect  to 
the  Man  Thinking.  This  brought  us  to  the  Psychozoic  Era,  the 
period  of  mental  dominance,  the  age  of  man.  The  geologic 
forces  that  formed  the  earth  are  still  at  work  in  the  form  of 
atmospheric  influence,  ocean  currents,  rain  and  snow,  earth- 
quake and  volcano.  However,  nature  has  all  but  completed  her 
work  of  natural  selection,  leaving  the  fate  of  animal  existence, 
including  the  life  of  man  himself,  in  the  hands  of  man.  "  The 
animal  takes  its  stand  on  the  plant,  man  bestrides  animality,  and 
the  whole  of  humanity,  in  space  and  in  time,  is  one  immense 
army  galloping  beside  and  before  and  behind  each  of  us  in  an 
overwhelming  charge  able  to  beat  down  every  resistance  and 
clear  the  most  formidable  obstacles,  perhaps  even  death," 12 

13  Bcrgson,  Creative  Evolution,  tr.  Mitchell,  p.  271. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  HUMANIZING  OF  MANKIND 


THE  DISCOVERY  OF  MAN 

MAN  HAS  JUST  BEEN  DISCOVERED!  "  THIS  STARTLING  STATE- 
ment  was  made  by  Ludwig  Feuerbach  less  than  a  cen- 
tury ago.  Suppose  we  revise  it  in  terms  o£  the  time- 
table in  the  previous  chapter  and  interpret  it  psychologically. 
Then  we  shall  say,  man  was  discovered  when  he  began  to  walk 
erect  or  when  he  started  making  tools  or  when  he  began  to  speak. 
Man  has  discovered  himself:  his  powers  of  body  by  which  he 
moves  and  acts,  the  faculties  of  brain  by  which  he  speaks  and 
thinks.  The  discovery  of  man  was  made  by  the  Aurignacian 
group  whom  we  know  somewhat  better  in  the  definite  form  of 
the  Cro-Magnon  man.  From  him  were  descended  men  as  we 
know  them,  and  we  begin  to  find  them  historically  in  Egypt  and 
Mesopotamia.  In  the  men  of  those  places  we  find  the  beginnings 
of  the  languages  we  recognize  in  the  form  of  the  Hamitic, 
Semitic,  and  Aryan,  which  must  trace  back  to  a  common  form 
of  speech.  Then  began  also  a  kind  of  thought-existence  which 
showed  itself  in  the  habit  of  observing  the  seasons,  reckoning 
time  generally,  and  counting  by  means  of  symbols,  Man  discov- 
ered himself,  his  world,  and  a  spiritual  order  beyond  both  of 
these. 

The  general  factors  in  the  discovery  of  man  may  be  styled 
sensitivity  and  spontaneity,  or  the  awakening  of  the  senses  and 
the  arousing  of  the  faculties  of  action.  These  movements  led  to 
the  clarification  of  the  intellect  and  the  fortification  of  the  will, 
or  the  proper  development  of  the  senso-motor  arrangement 
within  man.  Evolution  had  produced  man,  set  him  on  his  feet, 
and  raised  his  head.  It  was  now  for  man  to  raise  himself  to  his 
proper  stature,  or  take  his  strict  humanization  into  his  own 
hands.  It  may  be  that  it  was  only  some  fortunate  turn  in  the 
process  of  evolution  that  produced  man  or  that,  with  some  other 
sort  of  evolution,  different  creatures  would  now  be  in  control 


2g  THE  HUMANIZING  OF  MANKIND 

of  the  planet  earth;  but,  in  effect,  evolution  has  worked  to  pro- 
duce such  a  race  as  we  now  find  here.  Hence,  in  looking  back 
over  the  history  of  mankind,  it  is  as  if  the  production  of  the  race 
was  something  that  had  been  planned  from  the  beginning. 

In  addition  to  the  above  conjectures  which  lead  us  nowhere, 
we  might  inquire  why  it  was  that  man  has  used  only  one  tenth 
of  his  500  thousand  years  on  earth  to  better  himself  to  such  a 
degree  as  to  have  become  man  indeed.  We  know  only  that 
about  50  thousand  years  ago,  man  did  set  out  upon  a  truly  human 
course  of  development  which  has  brought  him  to  the  levels  of 
civilization  and  culture  as  we  observe  them  today.  Now,  it  will 
be  more  effective  if,  instead  of  wondering  about  the  general  evolu- 
tion of  mankind,  we  consider  the  means  by  which  man  has  hu- 
manized his  being.  Then  we  shall  discover  that  man  became  man 
by  means  of  the  head  that  nature  had  given  him,  for  in  this  there 
was  room  for  an  adequate  brain  and  the  organs  of  speech.  In 
addition  to  these  things  that  we  may  call  gifts,  man  developed 
the  powers  of  industry  and  art,  social  life  and  religion.  Two 
things  have  been  in  operation  in  this  process  of  humanization  — 
the  passage  of  time  and  human  effort.  Of  the  two,  it  is  the  effort 
of  man  that  must  engage  our  attention. 

THE  FREE  BRAIN 

The  emancipation  of  man,  which  is  still  going  on,  has  been 
brought  about  by  both  nature  and  man  himself.  Man  is  indebted 
to  nature  for  his  erect  posture  and  straightforward  gait,  by  means 
of  which  his  upper  limbs  were  set  free  for  work  and  his  head  was 
placed  in  a  position  to  direct  movement  and  action.  The  most 
important  consideration  is  his  brain.  When  man  appears,  his 
brain  is  not  wholly  different  from  that  of  the  ape-like  relative  in 
the  larger  family  of  nature.  When  the  brain  of  the  Java  man 
is  compared  with  that  of  the  ape,  it  seems  large;  but  when  set 
alongside  that  of  the  modern  man,  it  appears  correspondingly 
small.  But  it  is  the  use  of  the  organ  that  counts,  not  merely  the 
possession  of  it.  In  the  ape-mind,  such  consciousness  as  springs 
from  the  brain  is  no  more  than  a  sort  of  phosphorescence  with  its 
power  to  lend  a  certain  glow  of  intelligence  to  the  creature's 


THE  FREE  BRAIN  2^ 

lifnited  sphere  of  activity.  In  man,  however,  there  is  a  certain 
excess  of  consciousness,  a  distance  and  differentiation  between 
body  and  mind,  whereby  he  is  enabled  to  cover  a  broader  field 
of  activity  and  initiate  a  work  of  his  own.  If  we  regard  the  two 
brains  outwardly,  the  difference  appears  to  be  only  one  of  de- 
gree; but  if  we  consider  them  inwardly  and  observe  their  respec- 
tive functions,  that  difference  becomes  one  of  kind. 

We  may  assume,  if  we  choose,  that  in  the  matter  of  brain- 
building  nature  has  advanced  step  by  step,  so  that  actually  the 
differences  among  the  Primates  are  only  so  many  gradations. 
But  it  is  the  product  rather  than  the  process  that  concerns  us. 
The  product  is  man's  present  brain,  but  not  that  alone;  it  is  what 
that  brain  has  accomplished  in  the  civilization  and  culture  of  the 
human  race.  When  we  turn  from  process  to  product,  we  re- 
ceive the  impression  that  in  the  case  of  the  human  brain  a  sudden 
leap  occurred,  for  man  has  arrived  at  a  position  in  nature  which 
no  other  animal  can  match.  He  has  thrust  his  mind  forward  in 
the  way  that  he  had  previously  set  his  body  upward  and  has  be- 
come man  mental  in  the  way  that  he  was  originally  man  physi- 
cal. How  has  this  mental  thrust  been  accomplished? 

We  cannot  answer  this  question  by  pointing  to  some  good 
genius  who  instructed  man  in  the  art  of  thinking;  still  less  can 
we  attribute  his  acquisition  of  intelligence  to  some  extra  gift 
from  nature.  We  might  say  metaphorically  that  when  nature 
placed  man  on  his  feet,  she  released  his  head  and  equipped  him 
with  the  kind  of  brain  he  needed  for  his  work.  But  it  would  be 
more  in  accordance  with  experience  to  suggest  that  the  develop- 
ment of  the  brain  and,  with  it,  the  emancipation  of  the  mind 
were  due  to  man's  own  effort.  This  effort  was  not  put  forth  in 
the  form  of  mere  strength,  but  in  the  form  of  skill.  It  showed 
itself  physically  in  man's  original  industry  and  art,  psychologi- 
cally in  his  language  and  social  life.  Its  most  consummate  expres- 
sion was  in  religion.  These  outward  thrusts  are  significant  of 
man's  unique  nature  and  represent  man  as  a  creature  which  can 
go  beyond  itself.  The  bird's  nest,  spider's  web,  and  even  the 
beaver's  dam  are  forms  of  ingenious  activity  which  serve  their 
purpose  without  the  extension  of  the  creature  beyond  itself.  In 
man's  case,  however,  there  is  the  ability  on  the  part  of  the  crea- 


2g  THE  HUMANIZING  OF  MANKIND 

tureto  teach  itself  new  activities,  form  new  habits,  and  then  create 
variations  of  these. 

EMANCIPATION  THROUGH  INDUSTRY 

The  most  direct  way  in  which  man  emancipated  himself  from 
nature  and  set  his  mind  free  from  his  body  was  that  of  indus- 
try. The  aim  of  the  primitive  man  was  far  from  that  of  con- 
trolling nature  in  our  modern  sense  of  the  term;  the  best  that 
primitive  man  could  do  was  to  adapt  himself  to  nature,  or  let  in- 
telligence effect  a  conscious  adaptation,  as  instinct  had  afforded 
an  unconscious  modification.  He  did  this  by  means  of  stone 
implements,  weapons,  and  tools.  Some  of  these,  the  "dawn 
stones,"  or  eoliths,  extend  backward  in  time  to  an  incredibly  re- 
mote age,  causing  the  layman  in  geology  to  wonder  whether  such 
crudely  pointed  bits  of  flint  were  formed  or  were  merely  found 
by  the  men  of  that  period,  if  men  there  were  in  existence  in  that 
early  era  of  the  earth's  history.  The  progress  of  primitive  indus- 
try was  such  as  to  include  traps  for  beasts  and  nets  for  fish,  tents 
for  dwellings  and  boats  of  some  sort  for  transportation.  We  can 
do  no  more  than  point  at  these,  as  though  we  were  passing 
through  an  anthropological  museum  in  order  to  prime  our  minds 
for  the  finished  work  of  man  •  as  revealed  in  a  modern  expo- 
sition of  machinery  and  a  museum  of  art.  If  we  were  to  indi- 
cate the  character  and  development  of  such  pre-historic  activity 
on  the  part  of  our  fossil  ancestors,  we  should  soon  become  be- 
wildered by  details  and  thrown  off  our  historical  course.  We 
appeal  to  industry  as  evidence  of  intelligence  in  the  primitive 
brain. 

When  we  refer  to  industry,  we  are  thinking  more  of  the  in- 
ventive process  within  it  than  the  object  it  created,  "  In  the  be- 
ginning was  the  deed,"  as  Goethe  said.  Man  began  to  be  him- 
self by  means  of  what  he  did,  and  although  his  mind  was 
inarticulate,  his  brain  did  not  fail  to  express  its  intentions.  The 
value  of  such  manufacture  was  more  mental  than  material  and 
it  was  the  mind  rather  than  the  body  that  was  to  experience  the 
ultimate  advantage.  If  we  think  lightly  of  such  human  begin- 
nings, we  should  consider  how  long  it  was  after  man  had  de- 


INDUSTRY  AND  INTELLECT  2g 

vised  his  alphabet  that  he  postponed  the  art  of  printing  and  how 
long,  again,  it  was  after  the  Greeks  had  discovered  the  principles 
of  practical  mechanics,  even  to  the  steam  engine,  that  man  waited 
before  he  started  the  age  of  machinery. 

The  effect  of  invention  was  to  reveal  man's  powers  to  him  and 
show  him  how,  in  part,  the  problem  of  life  was  to  be  solved.  The 
nature  of  invention  is  such  as  to  reveal  the  adaptation  of  nature 
to  man  instead  of  the  original  adaptation  of  man  to  nature.  It 
was  the  beginning  of  that  artificial  world  in  which  we  now  live 
and  which  in  its  technicalism  is  beginning  to  feel  annoying. 
When  invention  is  viewed,  as  it  were,  on  the  inner  side,  it  shows 
that  man  has  the  ability  to  make  use  of  thoughts  as  well  as 
things;  the  ability  to  discover  the  physical  qualities  of  things  and 
the  psychological  processes  of  the  mind.  Man  created  both  ma- 
terial and  mental  instruments  at  the  same  time.  There  was  a 
kind  of  logic  in  the  mental  operations  of  the  primitive  maker  of 
tools  and  weapons,  houses  and  boats,  but  its  field  was  that  of 
the  concrete.  It  was  the  realistic  logic  of  nature  itself  and  pro- 
ceeded more  instinctively  than  consciously.  But  it  was  still  a 
logic,  a  mental  process  according  to  which  man  was  to  become 
man  indeed. 

INDUSTRY  AND  INTELLECT 

Man's  industry,  as  he  works  with  stone  and  metal,  with  clay 
and  wood,  reacts  upon  his  brain  to  render  him  homo  sapiens.  The 
effect  of  inventive  industry  is  both  exterior  "and  interior;  it 
shows  in  man's  mode  of  living  and  in  his  method  of  thinking. 
The  hearth  with  the  fire  that  man  built  upon  it,  the  home  in 
which  he  lives,  and  the  instruments  he  uses  in  his  hunting  and 
agriculture  have  a  refining  effect  upon  him.  But  it  is  just  as 
much  the  mental  process  whereby  he  creates  his  own  surround- 
ings and  performs  his  work  which  develops  the  inherent  human 
being  within  him.  As  Bergson  says,  "  It  is  this  mastery  that 
profits  humanity  much  more  even  than  the  material  result  of  the 
invention  itself.  Though  we  derive  an  immediate  advantage 
from  the  thing  made  ...  it  is  a  slight  matter  compared  with 
the  new  ideas  and  new  feelings  that  the  invention  may  give  rise 
to  in  every  direction,  as  if  the  essential  part  of  the  effect  were  to 


3o  THE  HUMANIZING  OF  MANKIND 

raise  us  above  ourselves  and  enlarge  our  horizon." *  We  observe 
this  in  our  day  in  the  way  that  one  invention  not  only  leads  to 
another,  but  also  increases  desires  whereby  luxuries  soon  be- 
come necessities.  We  observe  the  workings  of  this  principle  in 
the  primitive  mind,  wherein  the  betterment  o£  the  outer  condition 
went  hand  in  hand  with  the  improvement  of  the  inner  state  of 
mind. 

What  is  true  in  the  specific  field  of  fabrication  is  none  the  less 
observable  in  the  general  domain  of  civilization.  It  is  as  though 
the  will  in  carrying  out  an  idea  furnished  by  the  intellect  felt 
called  upon  to  repay  the  debt  with  interest.  The  deed  reverber- 
ates with  ideas.  Hence  it  was  that  Turgenev  said,  "  We  are  in- 
debted to  civilization,  not  alone  for  knowledge,  art,  and  law,  but 
for  the  fact  that  the  very  sentiment  of  beauty  and  poetry  is  de- 
veloped and  enters  into  force  under  the  influence  of  that  same 
civilization."  2  Thus  the  two  forms  of  human  life,  the  active 
and  the  intellectual,  interweave  and  the  total  effect  is  human 
life  in  its  fullness.  It  is  in  this  country  that  the  elaborate  develop- 
ment of  exterior  life  in  the  form  of  technicalized  civilization  has 
still  to  develop  a  parallel  form  of  existence,  an  interior  condition 
of  American  culture. 

THE  EFFECT  OF  ART 

To  the  testimony  of  industry  must  be  added  that  of  art,  a  ma- 
terial and  manual  manifestation  of  a  dawning  spiritual  life  in 
man.  Like  the  manufacture  of  tool  or  weapon,  boat  or  basket, 
a  work  of  art  is  physical,  yet  it  tends  to  assume  a  more  psychologi- 
cal character.  It  contains  less  and  less  of  the  material,  more  and 
more  of  the  mental,  consisting  as  it  does  of  something  extra  and 
useless  in  the  form  of  decoration,  ornament,  or  object  of  art.  The 
manufactured  article  was  a  necessity  in  the  actual  life  of  man; 
the  work  of  art  is  more  of  a  luxury  or  something  added  in  re- 
sponse to  an  inward  demand  for  completeness.  Art  seems  thus 
to  have  grown  out  of  industry  and,  since  these  human  origins 
retrace  their  way  so  far  back  into  antiquity,  we  will  risk  the  as- 

1  Creative  Evolution,  tr.  Mitchell,  p.  183. 

2  Smo'ke,  tr,  Hapgood,  p.  165. 


THE  EFFECT  OF  ART  3I 

sertion  that  art  is  about  as  old  as  man.  We  can  safeguard  our- 
selves by  the  further  assertion  that  man  is  not  man  until  he  is 
artist,  or  until  his  aesthetic  nature  has  developed.  "  Man,"  said 
Schiller,  "  is  not  fully  man  until  he  plays  "  ;  that  is,  until  he  ex- 
presses the  Sfieltrieb  out  of  which  art  is  engendered. 

How  did  primitive  man  exhibit  this  aesthetic  "  playfulness  " 
out  of  which  the  fine  arts  were  to  spring?  He  did  this  by  the 
direct  application  of  his  free  hands  to  detachable  materials  of  the 
earth.  The  moment  we  discover  some  evidence  of  technique  in 
such  manual  work,  we  discover  what  we  must  call  art.  This  may 
not  be  found  in  the  eoliths  referred  to  in  connection  with  primi- 
tive industry,  not  because  they  were  made,  or  chosen,  to  serve  a 
practical  purpose,  but  for  the  reason  that  they  lack  the  artistic 
touch,  the  human  finish  able  to  transform  them  from  things  to 
instruments.  But  with  the  faleoliths  this  is  not  the  case,  in  that 
the  human  touch  is  not  lacking  since  these  flint  implements  may 
be  considered  well-made  implements.  When  objects  of  primi- 
tive industry  are  well  made,  they  are  useful;  when  they  are  made 
better  than  the  need  requires,  they  are  "  beautiful."  "  The  tech- 
nical skill  involved  becomes  itself  a  stimulant  for  the  develop- 
ment of  still  higher  skill,  and  when  this  is  the  case,  the  object  is 
not  merely  well  made,  but  also  artistically  made,  for  virtuosity  and 
playfulness,  when  held  within  the  bonds  of  a  more  or  less  rigid 
form,  are  art."  3 

The  aesthetic  spirit  of  man  advances  farther  beyond  the  do- 
main of  the  natural  when  a  decorated  object  appears  beside  the 
well-made  one.  The  very  nature  of  the  material  employed  and 
the  method  of  manipulating  seem  to  invite  free  design.  What 
was  the  character  of  the  primitive  pattern?  On  this  point  an- 
thropologists differ,  some  of  them  inclining  toward  the  idea  that 
the  pattern  was  purely  geometrical,  others  observing  the  pres- 
ence of  realistic  forms.  The  layman,  who  looks  upon  works  of 
primitive  art  in  museums  and  further  considers  the  art  tenden- 
cies of  the  present  time,  does  not  find  it  necessary  to  take  sides 
with  either  party.  He  realizes  that  both  the  more  rigid  and  the 
free-flowing  lines  have  their  aesthetic  appeals,  and  can  see  how 
each  can  interweave  with  the  other.  A  geometrical  design  with 
8  Goldenweiser,  Early  Civilization,  p.  165. 


32  THE  HUMANIZING  OF  MANKIND 

its  straight  lines,  curves,  and  angles  can  be  used  to  portray  a 
realistic  object  like  an  animal.  And  just  as  easily  can  a  realistic 
representation  of  an  object  like  an  animal  convey  the  impression 
of  geometrical  forms,  as  in  the  case  of  Cubism.  What  the  gen- 
eral student  of  human  civilization  is  bound  to  observe,  over  and 
above  these  differences,  is  the  beginning  of  human  emancipa- 
tion in  the  free  sense  of  play. 

ART  AS  PLAY 

The  mental  activity  involved  in  the  art-work  of  primitive  man 
thus  becomes  more  important  for  our  purpose,  which  is  really 
psychological.  We  know  that  the  mind  of  man  has  freed  itself 
from  nature  in  the  form  of  both  matter  and  the  brain.  Man  is 
still  on  the  earth  and  his  mental  functions  operate  in  some  rela- 
tionship to  his  nervous  system,  but  his  intelligence  has  become 
a  free  agent  in  the  total  scheme  of  things.  It  is  this  emancipated 
intelligence  that  has  made  man's  world  for  him.  In  specific  rela- 
tion to  art,  the  release  has  come  about  through  the  functions  of 
play-activity,  imitation,  and  expression;  or  it  was  by  means  of  the 
combination  of  play  and  imitation  that  man  arrived  at  expression. 
The  works  of  art  peculiar  to  primitive  man  can  in  no  wise  com- 
pare with  the  perfected  art  of  ancient  Greece  or  of  modern 
Europe,  but  the  change  has  been  exterior,  not  interior.  The  art 
of  the  present  like  that  o£  the  past  is  an  aesthetic  urge  in  which 
play,  imitation,  and  expression  are  the  characteristic  forms. 

A  brief  analysis  of  the  play-impulse  will  suffice  to  reveal  its 
simple  method  of  emancipating  man  from  the  material  world 
without  taking  him  out  of  it  into  the  domain  of  pure  intellection, 
as  in  science  and  philosophy.  Play  arises  out  of  a  sense  of  super- 
abundance or  surplus  energy;  out  of  the  strength  that  is  left  after 
necessary  work  has  been  performed.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  play 
is  "  ideal."  In  a  necessary  industry  like  that  of  tool-making,  the 
factor  of  play  exhibits  itself  in  a  simple  form  of  playfulness  or  an 
artistic  touch  added  to  a  useful  implement.  In  design,  however, 
the  play-factor  becomes  more  creative  and  tends  all  the  more  to 
release  the  consciousness  of  the  primitive  artist.  He,  as  well  as 
the  artist  of  a  perfected  culture,  passes  serenely  from  the  external 


PRIMITIVE  ART  FROM  THE  CEILING  OF  THE  ALTAMIRA  CAVE  IN  SPAIN 


EARLIEST  EXTANT  WHITING,  FROM  THE  TOMB 
op  MENES  AT  ABYDOS 


PREHISTORIC  EUROPEAN  POTTERY,  POUND  IN  EXCAVATIONS  OF 
A  LAKH  DWHLLKUS'  VILLAGE 


ART  AS  PLAY  33 

to  the  internal,  from  the  necessary  to  the  free,  from  immediate 
interests  to  remote  ones.  Art  thus  assumes  the  form  of  excess, 
something  not  actually  demanded  by  the  exigencies  of  life.  It 
springs  from  the  brain  of  man  which  has  stored  up  extra  energies, 
delivers  itself  from  purely  physical  laws,  and  elaborates  principles 
of  its  own.  It  is  indeed  what  Prosper  Merimee  called  it  —  "  exag- 
geration a  propos!' 

The  aesthetic  "  exaggerations  "  of  art,  past  and  present,  are  not 
wholly  motor;  they  assume  the  parallel  form  of  the  intellectual. 
This  they  do  when  they  satisfy  the  desire  for  ideal  stimulation,  as 
though  the  everyday  sensation  were  insufficient.  We  might  im- 
agine that  primitive  man  would  be  so  taken  up  with  the  struggle 
for  existence  that  he  would  have  no  time  for  play  and  no  desire 
for  artistic  entertainment.  Just  as  fully  might  we  suppose  that, 
in  an  industrial  age  like  our  own,  the  desire  for  gain  would  be  so 
intense  that  there  would  be  no  room  for  ideal  interests.  But  such 
is  not  the  case.  With  both  primitive  man  and  man  in  an  indus- 
trial civilization  we  find  a  play-activity  worthy  of  the  Greeks. 
With  the  savage,  it  was  the  war  dance  with  pantomime  and 
mimetic  gesture;  with  civilized  man,  it  is  theatrical  entertain- 
ment of  various  sorts.  With  both  sorts  of  men,  savage  and  civi- 
lized, these  entertainments  are  not  necessarily  intellectual,  but 
they  are  operative  in  the  field  of  intellect.  That  is,  they  involve 
the  free  play  of  mind  and  have  no  other  source  than  the  desire 
for  "  ideal  "  excitement. 

But  the  natural  function  of  play  is  not  sufficient  to  account  for 
the  elaborate  institution  of  art  as  we  know  it  today  or  even  for 
the  results  of  primitive  art.  Play  ends  where  it  begins  —  in  move- 
ment, while  art  is  a  definite  result,  a  thing  created.  In  animal 
play,  the  games  of  children,  and  the  sports  of  adults  we  observe 
the  functioning  of  the  faculty;  but  we  are  in  search  of  a  product, 
not  a  process  only.  Hence,  to  attach  play-activity  to  things  and 
have  them  change  to  works  of  art,  we  must  have  recourse  to 
something  at  once  more  substantial  and  more  definite  whereby 
play  may  take  on  form.  This  we  find  in  imitation,  which  en- 
ables play  to  pass  significantly  from  an  impression  in  the  mind 
to  its  expression  in  an  object.  Play  may  supply  the  motive  for  art, 
but  imitation  involves  the  motif. 


THE  HUMANIZING  OF  MANKIND 

ART  AS  EXPRESSION 

This  does  not  mean  that  we  accept  and  perpetuate  the  tradi- 
tional idea  that  art  is  the  imitation  of  nature,  for,  while  there  is 
some  resemblance  between  an  object  in  nature  and  the  repre- 
sentation of  it,  art  does  not  copy  nature.  To  imitate  the  appear- 
ance of  an  object  would  be  merely  to  make  a  record  of  it,  as  in 
drawing  a  map;  not  to  develop  the  beauty  of  it,  as  in  painting  a 
landscape.  But  when  the  aesthetic  impulse  is  aroused  and  the 
art-play  has  begun,  it  stands  in  need  of  guidance,  which  is  af- 
forded it  by  the  mimetic  faculty  in  the  form  of  perception.  Art 
may  go  to  the  extreme  of  pure  play,  as  it  has  done  of  late  in 
accordance  with  the  maxim  "no  representation  of  the  recog- 
nizable," but  when  an  art  is  undeveloped  it  cannot  rejoice  in 
such  freedom.  It  must  follow  the  general  plan  of  nature  and 
use  imitation  as  its  modus  vivendi.  Such  imitation  is  really 
expression. 

The  term  "  expression  "  is  so  comprehensive  that  we  do  not 
hesitate  to  use  it  in  connection  with  primitive  art.  But  even 
when  expression  is  taken  specifically  and  its  psychological  nature 
duly  stipulated,  it  is  genuinely  applicable  to  the  aesthetic  efforts 
of  the  primitive  mind  and  hand.  We  approach  the  idea  of  art- 
expression  as  though  it  were  the  resultant  of  inner  and  outer 
forces,  of  play  and  imitation.  We  regard  it  as  an  effort  on  the 
part  of  the  mind  to  render  a  subjective  impression  or  feeling  ob- 
jective. The  merit  of  an  art  depends  upon  the  character  of  the 
inner  state  of  mind  and  the  adequacy  of  its  objectification.  Did 
the  artist  see  clearly  and  feel  deeply?  Does  his  art  reveal  these 
things  ?  By  raising  such  questions  we  try  to  feel  our  way  back 
into  the  minds  of  the  early  artists. 

When  we  speak  of  art  as  expression,  we  realize  that,  even  in 
its  most  gigantic  form,  a  work  of  art  can  convey  fine  feeling. 
This  we  realize  in  looking  upon  such  a  massive  structure  as 
Stonehenge  on  Salisbury  Plain  must  have  been  when,  in  the 
late  Neolithic  period,  it  was  erected  as,  perhaps,  a  temple  of  the 
sun.  More  adequately  do  we  realize  the  expressive  character  o£ 
architecture  in  such  a  monument  as  the  Great  Pyramid  or  in  the 
Parthenon.  Expression  of  a  more  distinct  type  appears  in  the 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  LANGUAGE          35 

Cathedral  at  Rheims,  St.  Peter's  at  Rome,  or  a  set-back  sky- 
scraper in  New  York.  The  principle  of  expression  is  such  in 
its  integrity  that  it  may  be  applied  to  such  different  types  of  build- 
ing as  we  have  mentioned.  It  is  a  stream  with  works  o£  art  jut- 
ting out  into  it  like  capes  and  peninsulas. 

The  same  continuity  of  aesthetic  activity  appears  in  folk  lore 
and  the  fully  organized  poem  of  the  Iliad;  in  early  modern  tales 
and  their  dramatic  form  on  the  Shakespearean  stage;  in  the  crude 
drawings  on  the  walls  of  caves,  the  frescoes  of  Giotto,  and  the  can- 
vases of  Raphael.  If  we  choose  to  clarify  art  as  it  has  appeared  in 
history,  we  may  make  artificial  cuts  up  and  down,  thus  dividing 
art  into  periods;  but  if  we  wish  to  feel  its  vitality,  we  must  look 
upon  it  longitudinally,  or  stream-wise,  as  continuous  expression. 
We,  for  all  our  sophistication,  are  bound  to  share  the  sentiments 
of  primitive  man  and  participate  in  the  same  feeling  of  expres- 
sion that  animated  him.  He  groped  after  the  beauty  that  we 
more  fully  grasp  and  sought  to  discern  the  aesthetic  forms  that 
are  so  much  clearer  to  our  eyes;  and  yet  he  expressed  himself  as 
we  express  ourselves. 

We  might  find  it  difficult  to  consider  primitive  art  as  expres- 
sion were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  our  generation  seems  to  be  in- 
dulging in  it  in  somewhat  the  same  way.  In  our  despair  over 
formalism,  which  reached  its  climax  in  the  Victorian  period,  we 
are  inclined  to  revert  to  the  primitive.  In  architecture,  we  ob- 
serve this  in  the  massive  type  of  building,  such  as  the  American 
Telegraph  and  Telephone  Building  in  New  York.  In  sculpture 
we  observe  the  crude  in  Rodin's  The  Thinker.  Gauguin's  paint- 
ings, so  distinctly  atavistic,  portray  primitive  life  as  the  artist  ob- 
served it  in  Tahiti.  Eugene  O'Neill,  with  such  a  play  as  Em- 
peror Jones,  reveals  the  modern  desire  to  return  to  a  primitive 
ideal  of  drama.  Such  works  of  art  look  natural,  "strangely 
natural"  as  we  say.  Their  "Futurism"  is  really  a  kind  of 
"Pastism." 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  LANGUAGE 

The  humanizing  of  man,  while  still  more  or  less  of  a  natural 
process,  was  intensified  by  the  development  of  language.  As 
we  saw  in  Chapter  I,  the  work  that  man  was  forced  to  perform 


36  THE  HUMANIZING  OF  MANKIND 

called  for  the  development  of  abridged  or  symbolized  activity 
in  a  linguistic  form.  Man  spoke,  we  might  say,  in  order  to  exist. 
His  word  had  meaning  for  him  and  significance  for  his  fellow 
man  also.  In  what  degree  was  primitive  man  adapted  to  verbal 
expression?  We  have  long  been  accustomed  to  believe  that 
primitive  tongues  contained  a  limited  vocabulary  and  no  gram- 
matical structure.  But  the  studies  of  anthropologists  in  the 
present  century  are  calculated  to  disabuse  our  minds  of  such  a 
prejudice.  "  It  is  now  known,"  says  Goldenweiser,  "  that  the 
vocabularies  of  more  than  one  Indian  tongue  comprise  several 
thousands  of  words  and  possess  phonetic  characteristics  compara- 
ble in  fixity  and  complexity  to  those  of  ancient  and  modern  lan- 
guages." 4  If  we  observe  the  ease  with  which  a  child  absorbs  a 
language,  our  own  English  or  a  difficult  tongue  like  the  Chinese, 
we  can  well  credit  the  primitive  mind  with  adequate  linguistic 
capacity,  which  is  a  purely  human  possession. 

It  is  not  necessary  for  us  to  go  into  the  philosophy  of  language 
to  appreciate  its  influence  in  the  humanizing  of  a  creature  that, 
having  learned  to  walk  erect,  use  his  hands  and  elaborate  his 
primitive  industries,  came  at  last  to  apply  names  to  things,  feel- 
ings, operations  in  nature,  and  social  relations.  On  the  subjec- 
tive side  of  language  there  was  doubtless  the  desire  to  express 
emotion,  whereby  language  would  amount  to  something  akin  to 
the  cry  of  the  animal.  On  the  social  side,  language  gratified  the 
primitive  individual's  desire  for  communication  with  his  fellow. 
From  the  standpoint  of  nature,  there  was  the  need  to  recognize 
the  differences  between  now  and  then,  here  and  there,  or  the 
natural  categories  of  time  and  space.  Just  as  fully  did  the  primi- 
tive mind  appreciate  the  qualities  of  things  and  the  forces  opera- 
tive within  them,  leading  it  to  the  ideas  of  substance  and  causal- 
ity. The  effect  of  language  has  been  to  detach  man  from  the 
natural  order  and  attach  him  to  the  human  one.  Instead  of  deal- 
ing with  things  only,  man  began  to  operate  with  symbols  o£ 
them.  If  language  had  not  arisen  when  work  began  and  the 
intellectual  had  not  accompanied  the  industrial,  human  beings 
would  have  amounted  to  no  more  than  automata.  But  when 
language  did  come  into  being,  it  gave  man  a  world  of  his  own, 

4  Early  Civilization,  p.  II. 


SOCIAL  LIFE  AND  HUMANITY  37 

akin  to  the  world  about  him,  but  more  a  world  of  ideas  than  a 
world  of  things. 

A  glance  at  the  parts  of  speech  will  serve  to  express  this  more 
clearly,  just  as  it  will  enhance  the  importance  of  language.  The 
multitudinous  words  in  a  developed  language  fall  into  definite 
compartments.  Not  only  do  they  reduce  themselves  to  alphabeti- 
cal form,  but  they  become  what  we  call  "  parts  of  speech."  Of 
these  the  noun  with  its  adjective  and  the  verb  with  its  adverb  are 
the  most  significant.  Indeed  it  was  by  means  of  these  four  parts 
of  speech  that  Aristotle  developed  his  categories,  or  fundamental 
forms  of  thought.  In  a  way  which  is  by  no  means  a  manner  of 
speaking,  one  uses  the  noun  to  indicate  things  as  far  as  these  be- 
come the  objects  of  his  consciousness.  Since  these  things  or  ob- 
jects are  recognizable  and  often  are  known  only  through  their 
qualities,  the  mind  turns  to  adjectives  to  indicate  states  of  exist- 
ence or  characteristics  of  things.  As  a  sort  of  balance  for  the 
noun,  language  makes  use  of  the  verb  to  indicate  relations  of  one 
sort  or  another,  the  relation  of  a  thing  to  its  qualities  as  also  the 
relation  of  one  thing  to  another.  Then,  just  as  the  adjective 
adapts  itself  to  the  noun,  so  does  the  adverb  locate  action  in  space 
and  time  and  indicate  the  way  in  which  it  is  carried  on.  In  gen- 
eral, it  was  when  man  desired  to  extend  and  intensify  the  field  of 
action  that  he  resorted  to  language. 

SOCIAL  LIFE  AND  HUMANITY 

The  social  life  of  man  was  another  factor  in  effecting  the  hu- 
manizing of  the  species.  As  in  the  case  of  industry  and  speech, 
we  are  accustomed  to  take  social  life  for  granted,  little  realizing 
by  what  effort  mankind  came  to  avail  itself  of  these  humanizing 
forces.  Even  today,  after  civilization  has  a  long  history  behind 
it,  we  find  it  difficult  to  assume  the  social  standpoint  except  in 
limited  ways.  Social  life  itself,  entering  human  life  in  connec- 
tion with  man's  works  and  words,  must  be  taken  to  mean  more 
than  the  quantity  of  human  life  as  this  may  be  summed. up  in 
the  form  of  population.  For  there  is  an  inward  quality  of  social 
existence  whereby  the  Greek  became  Grecian  and  the  citizen  of 
Rome  a  Roman  indeed,  and  it  is  this  inward  quality  that  civiliza- 


3g  THE  HUMANIZING  OF  MANKIND 

tion  and  culture  arc  supposed  to  enhance  and  purify.  It  is  not 
sufficient  to  attain  an  outer  unity  of  mankind,  as  we  endeavor 
to  do  politically  by  means  of  international  relations;  there  is  a 
demand  for  an  inner  unity  which  can  beget  a  common  conscious- 
ness. Society  means  division  of  labor  and  the  cooperation  that 
results  from  it,  but  it  is  calculated  to  mean  a  kind  of  mental  col- 
laboration involving  an  exchange  of  the  goods  of  the  mind. 

The  psychological  aspect  of  social  life  tends  to  take  the  place 
of  the  biological  analogies  employed  in  the  XlXth  century,  when 
society  was  looked  upon  as  an  "  organism  "  made  up  of  "  social 
tissue"  with  its  individual  "cells."  We  are  recognizing  the 
fact  that  society  is  a  great  deal  more  than  the  gregarious  instinct 
which  is  so  apparent  in  the  animal  order.  Society  is  an  organiza- 
tion of  minds  which  avail  themselves  of  such  human  institutions  as 
religion,  art,  and  science  to  bring  them  together  and  promote 
mutual  understanding.  It  is  a  mistake  to  follow  the  psychologi- 
cal analogy  too  far  and  thus  speak  of  a  "  social  mind  "  in  the 
way  that  society  was  once  regarded  as  an  organism.  A  mind  is 
an  individuated  thing  definitely  related  to  an  individual  brain. 
However,  we  have  a  right  to  refer  to  a  "  social  consciousness  "  in 
its  various  forms,  since  there  is  social  as  well  as  individual  psy- 
chology. Now  it  was  by  means  of  such  a  social  feeling  that 
primitive  mankind  began  to  promote  the  humanization  that 
makes  man  a  man  to  himself  and  mankind  to  the  human  species. 

The  social  organization  of  man,  whereby  he  began  to  approxi- 
mate to  his  humanity,  was  brought  about  by  the  institution  of  mar- 
riage; out  of  it  came  blood-relationship,  and  the  family  in  its 
widest  sense  of  kinship  became  the  State  in  miniature.  It  is  not 
the  only  social  factor,  but  it  is  the  most  original  one.  It  may  not 
have  assumed  the  regular  form  of  husband,  wife,  and  children, 
since  polygamy  and  polyandry  entered  in.  But  it  was  there  at 
the  beginning  as  it  is  now  —  the  basis  of  social  organization, 
The  "  mother  "  is  used  in  primitive  societies  to  designate  both  the 
mother  and  the  maternal  relatives,  as  the  corresponding  term 
"  father  "  may  denote  things  paternal,  but  the  fundamental  idea 
of  kinship  predominates.  The  clan  arises  when  the  children  are 
thought  of  as  belonging  to  the  mother,  the  gens  when  they  belong 
to  the  father. 


TOTEMISM  39 

FAMILY,  VILLAGE,  CITY 

The  family  as  a  social  factor  appears  in  history  in  connection 
with  the  patriarchal  family  of  the  ancient  Hebrews,  where  the 
names  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  are  most  thoroughly  under- 
stood as  groups  of  individuals  or  chains  of  generations  rather  than 
as  particular  individuals  bearing  those  names.  The  social  and 
religious  function  of  the  family  appears  in  a  sanctified  form  in 
China  with  its  ancestor  worship.  Even  in  our  own  age,  when 
society  might  seem  able  to  run  of  its  own  force  and  carry  its  own 
weight,  it  is  necessary  to  have  the  simple,  original  family  in  a 
highly  organized  State.  A  theoretical  conception  of  evolution 
seems  to  urge  us  to  think  of  the  family  as  itself  having  evolved 
out  of  an  original  condition  of  promiscuity  through  group  mar- 
riage to  individual  marriage,  but  the  facts  in  the  case  are  against 
such  a  conception.  As  Aristotle  pointed  out  long  ago,  it  is  the 
household,  oi\ps,  which  lies  at  the  foundation  of  the  State,  polis. 

The  family  relationship  at  the  basis  of  social  organization  was 
extended  and  enhanced  by  totemism.  In  its  simplest  form,  totem- 
ism  is  a  belief  that  a  tribe  or  totemic  group  may  trace  their  de- 
scent from  some  plant,  bird,  animal,  or  other  natural  object. 
Just  as  the  human  group  relates  itself  to  these  objects,  the  latter 
are  thought  of  as  groups  or  species  of  things  rather  than  as  in- 
dividuals. Totemism  is  more  social  than  religious,  since  the 
totem  is  not  an  object  of  direct  worship  so  much  as  one  of  awe. 
In  speaking  of  the  organization  of  the  totemic  system,  Golden- 
weiser  says,  "  The  skeleton  is  always  a  social  system.  It  may  be 
a  tribal  set  of  families  or  of  local  groups,  but  in  a  surprisingly 
large  majority  of  cases  it  is  either  a  clan  or  a  gentile  system.  The 
totemic  complex  may  constitute  the  very  flesh  and  spirit  of  that 
system,  but  if  the  totemic  complex  were  conceivably  removed, 
the  skeleton  would  remain;  there  would  still  be  a  social  system." 5 

TOTEMISM 

How  can  we  make  a  place  in  our  own  minds  for  totemism? 
We  can  do  this  when  we  observe  our  peculiar  attachment  for  pet 
5  Early  Civilization,  pp.  288-289. 


40  THE  HUMANIZING  OF  MANKIND 

animals,  as  for  example  dogs,  which  at  the  present  time  seem  to 
live  and  multiply  under  a  special  human  providence.  We  can 
sympathize  with  the  original  totemist,  again,  if  we  observe  how 
penetrating  minds  are  accustomed  to  see  animal  features  in  hu- 
man faces.  The  physiognomist  does  this,  but  so  does  the  ob- 
servant mind  generally.  This  we  observe  in  one  of  Ibsen's  cyni- 
cal comments  on  human  nature;  it  is  where  the  sculptor,  Rubek, 
speaks  in  When  We  Dead  Awaken. 

"  There  is  something  equivocal,  something  cryptic,  lurking  in 
and  behind  these  busts  — a  secret  something  that  the  people 
themselves  cannot  see.  I  alone  can  see  it  and  it  amuses  me  un- 
speakably. On  the  surface,  I  give  them  the  '  striking  likeness,' 
as  they  call  it,  that  they  all  stand  and  gape  at  in  astonishment. 
But  at  bottom  they  are  all  respectable,  pompous  horse-faces,  and 
self-opinionated  donkey-muzzles,  and  lop-eared,  low-browed  dog- 
skulls,  and  fatted  swine-snouts  and  sometimes  dull,  brutal  bull- 
fronts  as  well."  6 

We  are  not  pleased  with  such  comments,  yet  all  of  us  are  in- 
clined to  observe  quasi-animal  features,  and  often  attractive  ones, 
in  the  people  whom  we  see  pass  by.  How  much  simpler  must  it 
have  been  for  primitive  men  with  poorly  developed  features  to 
have  noted  these  animal  resemblances.  But  it  was  the  working 
of  the  totem  that  had  to  do  with  the  process  of  human  socializa- 
tion. This  was  in  connection  with  marriage.  Exogamy  was  the 
most  universal  and  significant  feature  of  the  custom.  It  gov- 
erned marriage  in  that  it  forbade  a  man  to  touch  a  woman  of  the 
same  totem  as  his  own,  or  even  the  female  members  of  a  whole 
group  of  totemic  clans.  Even  today  there  is  a  tendency  on  the 
part  of  a  young  man  to  seek  his  mate  outside  his  familiar  circle 
o£  acquaintances,  although  there  is  nothing  obligatory  about  this. 
All  in  all,  the  tendency  of  totemism  was  to  extend  the  social 
circle  and,  likewise,  render  the  individual  more  conscious  of  his 
social  nature. 

The  various  processes  by  which  man  became  a  human  being 
thus  seem  to  be  concentrated  in  his  social  nature.  Without  a  so- 
ciety about  him,  man  could  not  have  developed  language,  and 
however  individualized  his  art  and  industry  may  have  been  they 

6  Op.  dt.,  Act  I. 


THE  NATURAL  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL   4I 

required  a  social  setting  and  played  a  social  part.  Hence  we  as- 
sume the  social  character  of  mankind  and  then  cast  about  for 
plausible  ways  of  explaining  its  origin.  In  so  doing,  we  proceed 
as  social  science  is  in  the  habit  of  doing;  we  assume  what  we  de- 
sire to  prove  and  then  show  that  our  idea,  industrial,  aesthetical, 
linguistic,  or  social,  fits  into  the  general  plan  of  human  life  as 
we  know  it.  We  do  not  attempt  to  deduce  industry  or  art,  speech 
or  social  life  from  anything  not  already  contained  in  them.  In 
so  doing,  however  imperfect  our  logic  may  be,  we  avoid  the  error 
of  the  XVIIIth  century,  which  regarded  such  natural  effects  as 
social  life  and  language,  political  and  religious  institutions  as 
things  deliberately  invented  by  the  conscious  intellect.  We  define 
man  as  an  artistic,  linguistic,  social,  and  religious  creature;  then 
we  have  little  trouble  in  showing  how  society  with  its  various 
forms  arose. 

THE  NATURAL  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

The  process  by  which  the  human  species  became  human  beings 
was  bound  to  include  religion.  The  function  of  religion  at  the 
present  time  is  not  wholly  clear;  it  appears  to  be  a  means  of  so- 
cializing human  existence  and  promoting  human  welfare,  but 
it  is  more  inclined  to  speak  of  peace  on  earth  among  men  than 
glory  to  God  in  the  heavens.  With  the  primitive  mind,  religion 
was  a  means  of  gaining  insight  into  and  power  over  nature.  By 
means  of  common  perception,  man  came  to  an  immediate  under- 
standing with  the  objects  of  his  experience.  Through  his  indus- 
try he  gained  partial  power  over  them  in  particular.  But  to 
comprehend  and  command  the  world  as  a  whole,  as  the  primi- 
tive mind  so  understood  that  world,  was  another  matter.  Hence 
the  primitive  mind  confronted  nature  with  supernaturalism.  This 
assumed  two  leading  forms:  a  speculative  animism  and  practical 
magic.  These  forms  of  primitive  psychology  received  classic 
treatment  at  the  hands  o£  Tylor  in  his  Primitive  Culture  (1871) 
and  Frazer  in  The  Golden  Bough  (1890). 

The  religious  life  of  mankind  seems  to  have  begun  in  a  psy- 
chological manner  in  special  connection  with  animism.  Accord- 
ing to  Tylor,  religion  is  a  belief  in  spiritual  beings,7  a  belief  uni- 

7  Primitive  Culture,  Vol.  I,  Ch,  11. 


„-,  THE  HUMANIZING  OF  MANKIND 

4Z 

versal  among  primitive  peoples.  In  his  naturalistic  psychology 
the  primitive  man  had  to  distinguish  between  life  and  death 
waking  hours  and  those  of  sleep;  hence  he  resorted  to  an  animis- 
tic interpretation.  The  life  of  man  was  attributed  to  the  spirit 
in  the  form  of  breath,  for  when  a  man  died  he  stopped  breathing 
The  spirit,  however,  survived  and  it  was  this  disembodied  ghost- 
soul,  a  kind  of  filmy  or  vaporous  substance  that  visited  man,  ap- 
pearing in  the  form  of  dreams  and  visions. 

ANIMISM 

But  this  animism  was  more  than  a  psychology;  it  was  a  form  of 
worship  or  cult  of  the  dead;  out  of  it  grew  various  religious  prac- 
tices. Among  these  were  funeral  rites  which  involved  human 
sacrifices,  based  on  the  idea  that  the  dead  man  would  need  the 
services  of  his  wives  and  his  servants.  These  victims  of  their 
own  faith,  or  that  of  the  community,  were  buried  alive  or  stran- 
gled to  death  or  burned  on  the  funeral  pyre.  When  not  put  to 
death  by  force,  they  were  made  to  sacrifice  themselves  by  force 
of  public  opinion,  which  would  make  intolerable  the  life  of  the 
survivor,  chiefly  the  widow.  The  Japanese  improved  upon  the 
principle  of  the  living  sacrifice  of  the  deceased's  attendants  by 
substituting  images  of  stone,  clay,  or  wood  which,  since  the  dead 
could  have  no  physical  needs,  would  serve  his  purposes  about  as 
well.  Then  there  were  feasts  of  the  dead  celebrated  near  the 
tomb  of  the  dead  man,  who  consumed  only  the  steam  and  odor 
of  the  food  which  was  eaten  by  the  mourners.  Certain  modern 
survivals  of  animistic  practice  are  to  be  found  in  the  custom  of 
placing  flowers  on  a  grave,  originally  with  the  idea  that  the  spirit 
might  enjoy  their  odor.  The  military  custom  of  having  the  horse 
of  a  deceased  general  march  riderless  in  the  funeral  procession 
may  be  accepted  as  another  survival  of  animistic  procedure.  The 
significance  of  such  practices  has  been  forgotten,  but  the  symbol 
remains. 

The  philosophy  or  science  inherent  in  animistic  belief  and 
practice  involves  a  kind  of  primitive  idealism.  Animism  thus 
takes  on  a  cosmic  form  when  it  attributes  spirits  to  objects  gener- 
ally, the  animate  and  the  inanimate,  The  power  by  which  things 


MAGIC  43 

live  and  move  is  accounted  for  on  animistic  grounds,  the  assump- 
tion being  that  spirits  can  enter  into  things  as  well  as  persons. 
This  lends  sanctity  to  things,  which  become  objects  o£  worship. 
Such  an  object  then  becomes  a  fetish.  Animistic  philosophy 
takes  on  a  social  form  also,  since  the  souls  of  the  dead  came  to 
be  thought  of  as  constituting  a  class  of  spiritual  beings.  "  The 
souls  of  dead  men,"  says  Tylor,  "  are  in  fact  considered  as  actually 
forming  one  of  the  most  important  classes  of  demons  and 
deities."  s  Out  of  such  animism  sprang  ancestor  worship,  also; 
the  deified  ancestors  tended  to  become  patron  saints.  Indeed,  an- 
cestor worship,  which  is  of  no  little  domestic  and  social  value,  is 
so  widespread  in  India  and  Siam,  China  and  Japan,  and  so  vener- 
able in  form,  that  it  tends  to  mask  its  origin  in  the  crude  psy- 
chology of  the  primitive  mind.  Naturally  such  a  reverence  for 
the  dead  tends  to  promote  conservatism,  which  retards  civiliza- 
tion and  culture. 

MAGIC 

In  distinction  from  animism,  magic  is  the  practical  applica- 
tion of  belief  in  supernatural  powers;  these  the  primitive  mind 
desires  to  control  or,  at  any  rate,  conciliate.  In  magic,  religion 
is  put  to  work  and  used.  According  to  Frazer,  magic  is  older 
than  religion,  can  exist  in  independence  of  it,  but  shows  a  tend- 
ency to  fuse  with  it.  It  arose  in  connection  with  the  simplest  of 
mental  processes  —  the  association  of  ideas;  it  follows  the  prin- 
ciples of  association  that  Hume  made  a  part  of  modern  psycho- 
logical science  —  resemblance  and  contiguity.  "  The  very  beasts," 
says  Frazer,  "  associate  the  ideas  of  things  that  are  like  each  other 
or  that  have  been  found  together  in  their  experience,  and  they 
could  hardly  survive  for  a  day  if  they  ceased  to  do  so."  9  The  be- 
liever in  magic,  however,  proceeds  to  produce  the  association  that 
usually  is  merely  given  in  experience,  where  it  affords  a  kind  of 
guide  for  reason.  The  believer  in  magic  thus  fashions  a  crude 
doll  to  represent  his  enemy,  so  that  what  injury  he  inflicts  upon 
this  representative  object  will  through  association  by  similarity 
be  inflicted  upon  his  enemy.  By  this  simulation  of  the  real  act, 

8  Primitive  Culture,  Vol.  II,  Ch.  14. 

9  The  Golden  Bough,  Vol.  I,  p.  233. 


44  THE  HUMANIZING  OF  MANKIND 

he  brings  about,  to  his  mind,  the  actual  fulfillment  of  his  desire. 
On  the  other  hand,  one  may  himself  suffer  injury  at  the  hands 
of  the  enemy  who  has  in  his  possession  any  of  one's  personal 
effects,  as  hair,  nail-parings,  or  clothing.  This  is  the  complemen- 
tary form  of  the  magical  situation;  it  involves  association  t>y  con- 
tiguity in  space  and  time. 

It  comes  about  in  this  way  that  magical  belief  is  related  to  the 
idea  of  causality.  We  have  referred  to  Hume  and  his  doctrine 
of  association;  dare  we  make  similar  reference  to  Kant  and  his 
doctrine  of  causality?  In  both  the  primitive  mind  and  that  of 
the  profound  philosopher,  there  is  the  notion  that  causal  rela- 
tion in  thought  is  equivalent  to  causal  connection  in  fact.  "  Thus 
the  analogy  between  the  magical  and  the  scientific  conception 
of  the  world  is  close.  In  both  of  them  the  succession  of  events  is 
perfectly  regular  and  certain,  being  determined  by  immutable 
laws  the  operation  of  which  can  be  foreseen  and  calculated  pre- 
cisely." 10  There  is  something  magical  about  science  in  its  dis- 
coveries and  inventions,  but  it  is  a  question  whether  there  is  any- 
thing really  scientific  about  magic. 

The  differences  between  the  magical  and  scientific  states  of 
mind,  between  the  mind  of  primitive  man  and  the  philosopher, 
are  obvious.  There  is  a  vast  difference  in  the  degree  of  general 
intelligence  and  intelligent  experience.  The  magical  mind  pro- 
ceeds at  once  from  a  connection  which  has  established  itself  in. 
consciousness  to  a  parallel  connection  in  the  world  of  things. 
The  metaphysical  mind  does  not  attempt  such  a  memo-material 
relationship  until,  in  the  case  of  the  philosopher,  he  has  made  a 
critical  analysis  of  mind;  until,  in  the  instance  of  the  physicist, 
he  has  made  an  equally  careful  analysis  of  the  kind  of  matter 
with  which  he  is  to  deal.  The  magical  mind  may  intuit  a  prin- 
ciple of  fate  governing  the  world;  the  scientific  mind  prefers  to 
look  upon  this  in  the  form  of  Natural  Law,  or  a  system  of  laws 
which  the  mind  has  discovered.  The  one  is  intensely  emotional; 
the  other,  rational.  The  differences  in  the  results  are  that  the 
primitive  type  of  mind  attempts  to  control  nature  by  means  of 
the  wish,  while  the  philosophical  seeks  the  control  by  obedience 
to  the  laws  of  nature. 

*<>  The  Golden  Bough,  Vol.  I,  p.  221. 


SURVIVALS  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF  45 

SURVIVALS  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF 

Although  naturally  we  are  bound  to  deal  critically  with  the 
savage  mind  and  repudiate  its  animism  and  magic,  we  are  not 
entitlecTto  regard  animistic  beliefs  and  magical  practices  as  "  su- 
perstition." Primitive  men  were  not  superstitious  but  religious, 
since  superstition  arises  when  the  mind  departs  from  principles 
established  by  experience  and  reason.  In  default  of  a  higher 
standard  of  belief,  the  primitive  mind  made  use  of  such  mental 
processes  as  were  available,  as  the  association  of  ideas.  The  de- 
velopment of  religion  with  its  function  of  sacrifice,  prayer,  and 
righteousness  aroused  opposition  to  magical  practices.  These 
were  condemned  by  the  Levitical  Law  and  early  Christianity, 
but  persisted  in  mediaeval  astrology  and  alchemy.  It  has  some 
place  on  the  periphery  of  modern  thought  in  the  form  of  lucky 
objects  and  lucky  days,  signs  and  omens,  if  not  in  hero  worship 
and  the  "  magic  of  a  name."  It  has  its  place  on  the  realistic  stage 
of  Ibsen,  as  one  observes  in  Master  Builder,  whose  hero,  Solness, 
was  able  to  achieve  his  aims  by  merely  wishing  and  willing, 

"Don't  you  agree  with  me,  Hilda,  that  there  exist  special, 
chosen  people  who  have  been  endowed  with  the  power  and 
faculty  of  desiring  a  thing,  craving  for  a  thing,  willing  a  thing  so 
persistently  and  so  inexorably  that  at  last  it  has  to  happen?  Don't 
you  believe  that?  " X1  Apparently  the  special,  chosen  people  are 
those  who  have  been  unable  to  disabuse  their  minds  of  primitive 
notions  or  who  resort  to  them  by  way  of  fantasy.  The  same 
might  be  said  of  the  host  of  astrologists  and  numerologists  who 
at  the  present  time  are  resorting  to  certain  forms  of  magical  prac- 
tice. In  all  such  magical  reasoning,  if  reasoning  it  can  be  called, 
there  is  a  decided  touch  of  egoism.  The  individual  desires  that 
his  will  prevail;  it  is  always  his  welfare  or  his  good  luck  that  is 
paramount. 

In  the  case  of  the  primitive  mind,  this  egoistic  tone  assumes  a 
less  objectionable  character,  since  the  savage  is  not  in  a  position 
to  distinguish  between  the  stream  of  his  ideas  and  the  course  of 
the  world,  or  between  his  private  welfare  and  that  of  the  tribe. 
His  is  really  the  voice  of  the  tribe,  the  crying  out  of  the  humanity 

11  Op.  cit.,  Act  II. 


46  THE  HUMANIZING  OF  MANKIND 

within  him.  In  this  sense,  then,  the  root  o£  religion  may  be 
found  in  something  humanistic;  in  the  attempt  on  the  part  of  the 
Man  within  the  savage  to  assert  himself  as  a  human  being.  It  is 
a  spiritual  form  of  self-assertion,  or  the  affirmation  of  spiritual 
life  within  the  heart  of  the  natural  man.  It  is  for  this  reason  that 
we  come  to  regard  religion  as  the  most  penetrating  way  of  hu- 
manizing mankind.  It  works  crudely  enough  at  the  beginning 
or  even  now,  but  it  does  not  fail  to  assert  a  spiritual  principle 
within  man.  This  may  be  in  the  form  of  another  self  revealed  in 
dreams  just  as  it  may  assume  the  deeper  conception  of  a  life  after 
death.  The  effect  of  ,such  primitive  religion  is  what  concerns 
us.  This  was  the  humanization  of  the  human  species.  Our  an- 
cestors sought  gods  and  found  men. 

THE  NATURE  OF  HUMANITY 

But  the  general  humanization  of  mankind  means  more  than 
the  invention  of  tools  and  the  development  of  language,  the  in- 
stitutions of  society  and  religion.  It  means  civilization  and  cul- 
ture. What  do  we  mean  when  we  refer  to  humanity?  It  must 
be  more  than  a  superior  form  of  animality.  As  we  pursue  the 
course  of  man's  deeds  and  thoughts,  we  shall  be  led  to  the  belief 
that  in  man  we  find  a  unique  creature  whose  connection  with 
the  animal  order  and  place  in  the  evolutionary  scheme  can  be  all 
but  ignored.  We  shall  cease  speaking  of  industry  and  begin  dis- 
cussing the  effects  of  this  industry  upon  nature  and  man.  We 
shall  make  no  further  reference  to  language  as  such,  but  shall 
consider  what  various  human  languages  have  expressed  in  litera- 
ture. We  shall  turn  away  from  the  general  principle  of  sociality 
and  consider  how  this  has  elaborated  significant  civilizations  and 
shall  abandon  the  primitive  conception  of  religion  for  the  sake 
of  observing  the  trend  of  religion  in  modern  life. 

We  must  not  fail  to  observe  how  man  has  detached  his  being 
from  the  order  of  nature  whence  he  sprang  and  made  himself 
lord  of  the  whole  earth,  where  he  dictates  which  animals  shall 
or  shall  not  survive.  It  is  man  himself  who  has  elaborated  the 
evolutionary  theory  of  his  own  origin  whereby  he  has  come  to 
think  of  himself  in  ways  that  would  have  dismayed  philosophers 


THE  EMANCIPATION  OF  MAN  ^ 

in  the  days  of  Plato  and  even  amazed  scientists  in  the  more  re- 
cent age  of  Newton.  There  is  no  denying  the  evidence  of  evolu- 
tion, but  there  is  good  reason  for  resisting  the  implication  that 
therefore  man  is  only  one  animal  among  others,  albeit  a  primus 
inter  pares.  From  what  man  has  thought  and  said  and  done  we 
have  the  right  to  believe  that  he  is  qualitatively  different  from 
the  animal  order  to  which  he  is  related  only  incidentally.  We 
are  to  regard  man  as  though  he  were  free. 


THE  EMANCIPATION  OF  MAN 

The  moment  we  speak  of  human  freedom,  we  encounter  an- 
other human  theory  that  man  elaborated  for  the  purpose  of  com- 
prehending the  natural  order  and  then  applied  to  himself.  This 
is  the  principle  of  causality.  Now,  it  would  require  an  inde- 
pendent treatise  to  do  justice  to  the  question  of  free  will  and 
causal  determinism;  even  then  the  argument  might  result  in  a 
stalemate.  Hence,  instead  of  engaging  in  a  dialectical  dispute, 
we  will  merely  refer  to  the  works  of  man  we  are  about  to  ex- 
amine and  make  the  assumption  that  the  effects  of  civilization 
and  culture  are  to  be  ascribed  to  man's  own  will.  Arts  and  sci- 
ences are  not  among  the  usual  works  of  nature,  and  their  exist- 
ence is  argument  de  facto  in  favor  of  the  free  activity  of  man, 
who  builds  the  cities  and  writes  the  poems,  who  installs  a  system 
of  mechanism  in  nature  even  at  the  risk  of  including  himself  in 
it.  If  at  the  moment  man  is  performing  an  act,  he  is  not  con- 
scious of  his  freedom;  when  he  reflects  upon  the  work  of  his 
hands  he  has  the  right  to  refer  to  it  as  the  great  Babylon  he  has 
builded.  This  leads  us  to  a  third  aspect  of  humanism  —  the  con- 
sciousness of  mankind. 

Here,  again,  just  as  in  the  case  of  man's  humanity  and  free- 
dom, we  are  called  upon  to  observe  how  man  tends  to  include 
himself  in  his  own  work,  as  though  one  were  to  build  a  boat  in- 
side a  shop  with  a  small  door  and  then  find  himself  unable  to 
launch  his  craft.  As  long  as  we  dwell  upon  the  idea  of  common 
consciousness,  as  we  may  call  our  combination  of  sensations,  just 
so  long  will  it  be  possible  for  us  to  relegate  this  to  the  brain.  But 
when  we  advance  from  a  given  to  an  acquired  consciousness, 


4g  THE  HUMANIZING  OF  MANKIND 

such  as  expresses  itself  in  culture  and  exercises  itself  in  civiliza- 
tion, we  find  the  cerebral  theory  of  consciousness  so  out  of  place 
as  to  be  almost  meaningless.  Our  culture-consciousness,  so  to  call 
it,  is  a  massive  product,  out  of  which  we  build  humanistic  things 
such  as  are  found  in  the  arts  and  sciences.  We  might  call  it 
"  mind,"  but  that  would  involve  us  in  metaphysics.  If  we  referred 
to  it  as  "  spirit  "  or  the  "  life  of  the  spirit,"  the  suggestion  would 
be  religious.  Let  us  continue  to  call  it  "  consciousness,"  but  think 
of  it  in  that  special  way  we  recognize  in  the  history  of  humanity 
with  its  accumulation  of  wisdom  and  work.  It  is  what  we  think 
of  and  refer  to  as  "  human  life  "  when  we  are  not  terrorized  by 
some  scientific  theory  of  our  own  making.  It  is  really  the 
memory  of  the  human  race.  It  is  in  this  human  memory  that  man 
discovered  himself. 

The  discovery  of  man  as  homo  sapiens  and  the  invention  of 
man  as  homo  civilis  would  have  amounted  to  little  but  for  the 
direct  development  of  mankind  in  civilization  and  culture.  If 
we  ignore  these,  we  shall  not  be  able  to  advance  beyond  an- 
thropology and  shall  continue  to  speak  of  man  as  of  some  animal 
species  only.  But  our  concern  is  with  men  like  ourselves  and  the 
human  order  of  which  we  are  a  part,  hence  we  must  ourselves 
assume  responsibility  for  what  man  does  and  thinks.  This  we 
do  when  we  consider  the  great  schemes  already  mentioned  — 
civilization  and  culture.  What  do  these  terms  signify  and  how 
much  weight  of  meaning  can  they  carry?  In  answering  these 
impromptu  questions,  we  make  little  headway  by  considering  the 
original  connotation  of  the  words,  for  civilization  seems  to  sug- 
gest city  life  while  culture  conveys  the  idea  of  a  garden.  We  use 
these  terms  because  they  are  conventional,  but  we  must  apply 
them  in  a  philosophical  or  universal  manner. 

The  point  of  departure  in  the  conception  of  these  terms  or  ideas 
is  that  of  human  life,  for  they  are  views  of  mankind  and  human 
history  at  large.  Both  civilization  and  culture  imply  the  per- 
fectibility of  man,  or  an  outer  and  inner  form  of  development. 
Accordingly  we  say  that  civilization,  which  we  recognize  in  em- 
pires and  social  systems,  is  an  attempt  to  perfect  man's  life  out- 
wardly. Culture,  discernible  in  Greek  life,  Scholasticism,  the 
Renaissance,  and  the  like,  are  parallel  attempts  to  perfect  man's 


THE  EMANCIPATION  OF  MAN  49 

life  inwardly.  We  can  identify  civilization  in  the  multifarious 
works  of  man  in  State-making,  government,  commerce,  and  law. 
Culture  we  can  observe  in  the  manifold  development  of  the  arts 
and  sciences.  The  idea  of  civilization  is  likely  to  assume  a  politi- 
cal; culture,  an  aesthetical  form.  Both  attempt  to  perfect  man, 
to  humanize  him. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  FACTORS  IN  CIVILIZATION 


THE  MEANING  OF  CIVILIZATION 

WE  ARE  NOT  AT  ALL  ENLIGHTENED  WHEN  WE  READ  IN  DIC- 
tionaries  or  encyclopedias  that  "  civilization  "  means 
a  condition  in  which  man  is  "  civilized."  We  are 
scarcely  better  off  when  a  writer  on  the  subject  of  civilization 
proceeds  to  etymology  and  identifies  a  complex  subject  with  a 
simple  term  —  civilization  with  civis,  meaning  a  citizen.  This 
would  lead  us  to  believe  that  to  be  civilized  means  to  live  in  a 
city  and  rejoice  in  the  customs  and  manners  of  urban  existence. 
To  be  civilized  would  amount  to  no  more  than  having  the 
sophistication  that  is  associated  with  a  city  and  the  fine  manners 
supposed  to  accompany  city  life.  This  is  of  course  a  shallow  way 
of  approaching  a  serious  subject;  it  involves  no  more  than  the 
popular  contrast  between  "  citified  "  people  and  the  inhabitants 
of  rural  regions.  But  it  may  be  pointed  out  that  the  "  civilized  " 
people  of  England  live  in  the  country  and  go  up  to  London  for 
the  season,  while  the  "  civilized  "  people  of  France  dwell  in 
Paris  and  make  excursions  into  the  country.  Hence  we  accom- 
plish nothing  by  playing  upon  the  word  civis  and  had  better 
settle  down  to  a  substantial  conception  of  our  subject  matter.  By 
civilization  we  mean  the  improvement  or  perfection  of  man's 
outer  condition;  it  concerns  man's  relation  to  nature  and  his  fel- 
ipw  man.  .  It  is  a  state  of  affairs,  and  is  both  physical  and  social. 
Mankind  lives  in  nature,  but  men  are  not  civilized  until  they 
are  adjusted  intelligently  to  their  natural  environment.  All  men 
are  gregarious,  but  they  do  not  enjoy  civilization  until  they  be- 
come social,  until  their  relationships  are  rational.  Man  entered 
the  world  on  the  same  level  with  other  animals.  He  was  with- 
out clothing  or  shelter  and  devoid  of  tools  and  weapons.  For 
food  he  was  directly  dependent  upon  what  nature  had  to  offer 
him.  His  relations  to  those  about  him  were  purely  instinctive  in 
the  form  of  family  life  and  clan  existence.  He  was  a  long  dis- 

5° 


THE  POINT  OF  DEPARTURE  5I 

tance  from  such  civilization  as  we  have  today  in  the  form  of  ma- 
chines and  institutions.  But  man  was  equipped  with  a  superior 
brain  and  a  skillful  hand,  the  gift  of  language  and  the  possibilities 
of  reason.  By  such  means  was  he  to  solve  the  problem  of  life,  a 
problem  still  awaiting  solution.  His  senses  were  receptive  and 
his  brain  inventive;  by  means  of  observation  and  invention  he 
was  able  to  detach  himself  from  nature  and  live  a  truly  human 
life.  His  civilization  began  when  he  reacted  to  nature  and  re- 
sponded to  his  fellow  man.  Such  civilization  was  instinctive  — 
something  that  man  found  in  himself.  It  was  not  formed  con- 
sciously by  means  of  a  social  contract,  as  Hobbes,  Locke,  and 
Rousseau  thought,  but  was  implicit  in  the  life  of  man  as  man. 
Man  is  naturally  social  and  is  thus  apt  for  civilization.  Aristotle 
made  this  idea  the  basis  of  political  theory;  Grotius  laid  it  down 
as  a  fundamental  principle  of  law.  This  is  likewise  the  testi- 
mony of  history  and  anthropology.  Retrace  the  history  of  man 
as  far  back  as  we  may,  we  find  a  social  creature.  How  is  human 
civilization  to  be  understood  and  evaluated? 

THE  POINT  OF  DEPARTURE 

It  is  natural  to  seek  definitions  which  will  give  us  some  sub- 
ject matter  in  so  many  words.  But  what  are  we  profited  when 
.we  have  a  set  of  terms  supposed  to  indicate  the  meaning  of 
"  nature  "  or  "  humanity,"  "  culture  "  or  "  civilization  "  ?  Such 
fundamental  notions  are  as  difficult  to  define  in  language  as  they 
are  correspondingly  simple  to  realize  in  life.  In  the  instance  of 
•civilization,  we  are  in  a  position  to  appreciate  the  significance  of 
the  thing  itself,  but  are  not  so  well  situated  when  it  comes  to  ren- 
dering the  meaning  of  this  in  words.  The  translation  from  fact 
to  idea,  from  human  deeds  to  human  words  can  never  be  literal; 
at  best  it  is  only  a  paraphrase  of  things.  However,  it  is  not  im- 
possible for  us  to  identify  the  meaning  of  the  idea  in  question. 
In  the  case  of  both  culture  and  civilization,  we  find  the  point  of 
departure,  if  not  the  norm,  in  the  contrasted  idea  of  nature. 

When  we  refer  to  nature  as  the  contrary  of  civilization,  we  do 
not  have  in  mind  the  exterior  order  of  things  which  surrounds 
man.  Man  at  once  humanizes  the  world  by  perceiving  it;  he 


52  THE  FACTORS  IN  CIVILIZATION 

makes  it  something  like  himself  by  means  of  his  human  arts  and 
sciences.  But  this  philosophical  and  scientific  conception  of  the 
world,  which  yields  a  kind  of  intellectual  cosmos,  is  not  the  natu- 
ral order  which  concerns  civilization.  Here  the  situation  is 
dynamic,  not  intellectual.  It  is  a  living  state  of  affairs  in  which 
nature  acts  upon  man  and  man  reacts  upon  nature.  Hence  it 
is  not  the  forms  of  the  world  —  space  and  time  —  which  appeal 
to  man  and  engage  his  attention,  but  the  forces  of  the  world  — 
matter  and  motion  —  which  challenge  his  will  and  are  involved 
in  the  problem  of  human  civilization.  What  nature  has  done  for 
man  has  been  observed  already  in  the  evolution  of  the  human 
species  from  the  Peking  man  to  the  man  of  the  present.  But 
this  has  nothing  to  do  with  civilization.  Civilization  is  man's 
own  work. 

In  its  simplest  form,  civilization  consists  of  exchange.  Man 
puts  off  something  natural  and  puts  on  something  artificial;  or 
he  puts  off  the  *'  old  man  "  and  puts  on  the  "  new  man."  It  is 
natural  for  mankind  to  wander,  not  only  in  search  of  food  but 
also  to  satisfy  the  desire  for  novelty.  It  is  **  civil  "  or  civilized  for 
mankind  to  abide  in  a  fixed  habitation,  produce  a  large  popula- 
tion, and  carry  on  some  sort  of  socialized  work  by  means  of  co- 
operation. It  was  natural  for  human  beings,  if  we  may  call  them 
such,  to  live  as  they  did  from  the  age  of  the  Peking  man  to  that 
of  the  Cro-Magnon  type.  The  differences  among  types  of  men 
—  Pithecanthropus,  Heidelberger,  Neanderthal  —  were  wrought 
by  nature  itself.  But  when  instead  of  mere  differences,  which 
still  obtain  in  racial  forms,  improvements  appear,  these  improve- 
ments are  to  be  attributed  to  men  themselves  and  are  to  be  duly 
credited  to  civilization.  Hence,  as  far  as  we  have  advanced  in 
framing  a  concept  of  civilization,  we  see  that  distance  from  nature 
and  difference  from  nature  are  the  most  significant  ideas.  Civi- 
lization at  large  consists  in  putting  off  the  "  natural  man." 

This  human  civilization  may  have  been  in  vain,  but  that 
pathetic  idea  need  not  stand  in  the  way  of  finding  out  what  It  is 
that  has  failed  to  better  man's  condition  and  character.  The  arts 
and  sciences,  governments  and  industries,  ideals  and  institutions 
that  man  has  elaborated  may  not  have  elevated  him  above  sav- 
agery, such  savagery  as  was  witnessed  in  the  World  War,  but  it* 


NATURE  AND  HUMANITY  53 

is  the  tendency  to  elaborate  just  such  things  that  constitutes  civi- 
lization. Hence  the  value  of  the  product,  which  can  easily  be 
questioned,  cannot  negate  the  fact  of  the  process,  for  civilization 
as  a  fact  cannot  be  denied.  Furthermore,  when  we  are  inclined 
to  doubt  that  the  result  of  civilization  has  meant  human  better- 
men^  we  cannot  overlook  the  fact  that  such  betterment  has  been 
the  purpose  of  civilization. 

NATURE  AND  HUMANITY 

The  self -emancipation  of  man  from  nature,  or  civilization,  has 
been  carried  on  by  thought  as  much  as  by  action.  Indeed,  the 
intellectual  character  of  civilization  is  such  as  often  to  render  it 
indistinguishable,  as  it  is  ever  inseparable,  from  culture.  Both 
alike  sunder  man  from  the  natural  order.  Man  verily  knows  that 
a  minimum  of  insight  and  activity  suffices  to  satisfy  his  immedi- 
ate wants  in  the  form  of  food  and  clothing  and  shelter.  Man 
realizes  at  heart  that,  after  all,  the  processes  of  human  satisfac- 
tion are  simple  and  may  be  said  to  be  bound  up  in  the  common 
experience  of  pleasure-pain.  Yet,  in  spite  of  the  benefit  near  at 
hand  and  the  satisfaction  near  at  heart,  man  has  persuaded  him- 
self that  his  "  needs  "  include  what  are  really  luxuries.  He  needs 
shelter,  but  desires  to  dwell  in  a  palace.  He  must  have  food,  but 
has  expended  great  effort  to  secure  tea  and  coffee  and  exotic  con- 
diments generally.  Clothing  he  requires,  but  he  sets  an  unusual 
value  upon  such  forms  of  dress  as  furs  and  silks,  brought  from 
a  distance.  In  our  age,  a  certain  amount  of  machinery  has  be- 
come necessary,  but  we  have  extended  the  list  of  life's  essentials 
until  it  includes  an  automobile  and  a  radio  for  almost  every 
family.  And  yet,  with  all  these  increasing  luxuries  ever  settling 
down  into  necessities,  it  is  only  so  much  instinct,  so  much  emo- 
tion that  is  to  be,  or  can  be,  satisfied. 

But  this  fact  of  luxury  in  civilization  should  be  accepted  as 
evidence  of  man's  desire  to  be  "unnatural,"  rather  than  as  a 
criticism  of  his  effort  toward  self-emancipation.  The  luxuries  of 
the  civilized  man  may  be  regarded  in  the  form  of  a  will-o'-the- 
wisp  or  even  bait  to  lead  man  into  human  enterprise  wherein  the 
effort  itself  rather  than  its  effects  becomes  the  factor  in  civiliza- 


54  THE  FACTORS  IN  CIVILIZATION 

tion.  It  man  had  continued  to  exert  himself  merely  as  a  crea- 
ture seeking  food  and  similar  natural  boons,  he  would  not  have 
had  the  civilizations  that  history  records.  The  effort,  the  enter- 
prise, the  clan,  the  flair  is  the  leading  consideration.  "  Progres- 
sive culture,"  says  Lotze,  "is  not  unlike  a  majestic  waterfall 
which,  seen  from  a  great  distance,  seems  to  promise  great  things, 
and  yet  which  when  we  look  nearer  does  not  appear  to  shower 
upon  the  soil  of  life  a  greater  amount  of  refreshing  spray  than 
was  afforded  in  the  quieter  life  of  antiquity  by  the  more  modest 
stream  of  a  less  splendid  civilization." *  Nevertheless  it  is  the 
mighty  effort,  man's  constant  striving  toward  civilization  rather 
than  the  fruitful  results  of  it  that  has  urged  man  forward  and 
upward. 

Instead  of  rounding  out  a  definition  that  might  have  no  more 
than  verbal  value,  we  had  better  indicate  some  of  the  leading 
features  of  civilization.  They  will  be  found  to  involve  the  idea 
of  less  and  less  nature,  more  and  more  humanity.  They  include 
such  obvious  operations  as  securing  food,  making  clothing,  and 
providing  shelter,  and  might  appear  to  be  only  the  extension  of 
natural  forces  working  through  man  according  to  the  general 
struggle  for  existence.  But  these  necessities  of  life  are  not  merely 
things  that  man  finds;  he  prepares  and  manufactures  them. 
Further  removed  from  man's  natural  activities  is  the  manufac- 
ture of  implements,  of  tools  and  weapons.  The  development  of 
such  industrial  civilization  has  been  from  stone  to  steel,  from  the 
rude  implements  of  primitive  man  to  the  elaborate  machinery  of 
civilization  today.  These  elements  of  material  civilization  have 
an  importance  of  their  own  inasmuch  as  by  means  of  them  man 
was  able  to  live  and  improve  the  conditions  of  his  existence.  But 
they  are  of  psychological  significance  also;  they  indicate  human 
inventiveness.  Invention  means  a  combination  of  mind  and 
matter,  the  production  of  something  novel,  and  the  ideal  of  im- 
provement. By  means  of  instruments  man  invented  an  object 
and  discovered  himself  as  the  maker  of  it.  Each  invention  which 
could  be  applied  to  his  own  advantage  or  enjoyment  led  man 
to  devise  other  contrivances.  Moreover  he  established  practical 
habits  of  mind. 

1  Uicrocosmus,  tr.  Hamilton  and  Jones,  Bk.  VI,  Ch.  I,  §  i. 


INSTRUMENTS  AND  INSTITUTIONS  55 

INSTRUMENTS  AND  INSTITUTIONS 

But  civilization  is  institutional  as  well  as  instrumental,  for  man 
operates  with  both  the  tangible  and  the  intangible.  Alongside 
mechanisms,  he  builds  institutions  —  the  family  and  property, 
worship  and  political  organization,  law  and  education.  All  of 
these  institutional  inventions,  so  to  style  them,  may  have  their 
physical  characteristics,  as  the  living  beings  that  constitute  a 
family  and  the  real  objects  that  go  to  make  up  property;  but 
these  institutions  exist  in  another  than  the  physical  order.  They 
enjoy  an  existence  in  a  realm  that  is  social,  mental,  spiritual.  If 
we  attempt  to  analyze  them,  we  discover  a  texture  of  ideas,  inten- 
tions, feelings,  habits,  customs,  and  the  like.  We  may  not  be  able 
to  identify  them  with  any  specific  domain  of  existence,  but  we 
know  that  they  are  not  in  any  of  the  realms  of  nature.  Civiliza- 
tion means  distance  from  nature  and  a  corresponding  approach 
to  a  human  order  of  existence;  hence  the  tendency  to  civilize 
may  be  praised  or  blamed  accordingly  as  one's  philosophy  of  life 
may  dictate.  But  the  fact  of  separation  from  the  natural  order 
and  the  elaboration  of  a  spiritual  one  is  ever  apparent. 

The  separation  of  man  from  the  earth  and  the  distinction  be- 
tween nature  and  humanity  result  in  a  double  task  for  the  civi- 
lized man.  He  must  subdue  both  nature  and  himself,  must  per- 
fect his  condition  and  his  character.  His  progress  along  the 
physical  line  of  instruments  has  been  physical,  while  his  eleva- 
tion by  means  of  institutions  has  been  moral.  Before  we  come 
to  the  question  of  civilization  as  progress,  we  must  observe  that 
advancement  apparently  inherent  in  the  very  nature  of  mankind 
has  been  more  marked  on  the  physical  than  on  the  moral  side 
of  his  civilization.  It  might  be  thought  that  nature  would  re- 
sist and  that  he  would  obey  his  own  nature,  but  something  like 
the  reverse  seems  to  be  the  situation.  This  may  be  due  to  the  fact 
that  the  human  mind  has  a  better  comprehension  of  nature  than 
of  man  himself;  physics  is  more  perfect  than  psychology  and  the 
science  of  astronomy  far  superior  to  that  of  sociology.  Nature 
proceeds  according  to  laws  which  man  can  discover  and  apply. 
Human  nature  for  all  its  religious  beliefs,  ethical  ideals,  and 
aesthetical  standards  does  not  present  such  a  system  of  laws.  It 


5g  THE  FACTORS  IN  CIVILIZATION 

cannot  be  said  strictly  that  "nature  obeys  man";  nature  obeys 
her  own  laws,  and  it  is  by  discovering  these  that  man  is  able  to 
exercise  some  practical  control  over  physical  forces. 

CAUSE  AND  PURPOSE 

The  distinction  between  the  physical  and  moral  in  civilization, 
or  the  perfection  of  natural  forces  in  machines  and  the  attempted 
perfection  of  human  forces  in  institutions,  is  a  distinction  be- 
tween  cause  and  purpose.  We  can  discern  a  certain  degree  of 
purpose  in  natural  operations  and  as  much  causation  in  human 
actions,  but  it  is  best  to  relegate  causality  to  nature  and  purpose 
to  humanity.  In  the  case  of  nature,  we  are  bound  to  be  satisfied 
with  what  is  given  in  experience,  but  in  the  instance  of  man  we 
are  just  as  much  bound  to  take  into  consideration  both  that  which 
has  been  in  the  past  and  that  which  we  believe  should  be  in  the 
future.  This  does  not  mean  that  civilization  must  aim  at  Utopia 
or  that  a  given  system  of  government,  such  as  that  of  the  United 
States,  should  be  modeled  upon  the  ideal  republic  of  Plato.  All 
that  it  means  is  that  human  institutions  are  a  combination  of  the 
actual  and  the  ideal,  of  the  historical  and  the  Utopian.  The  reason 
why  there  are  no  laws  of  civilization  comparable  to  the  laws 
of  nature  is  that  civilization,  while  suggesting  laws,  is  deter- 
mined by  ideals;  it  involves  more  of  the  future  than  of  the 
present  or  the  past;  it  is  an  aspiration  more  than  a  phenomenon. 
Social  science  is  "  inferior  "  to  physical  science  in  that  it  lacks  ac- 
curacy and  predictability;  it  is  "  superior  "  to  it  because  it  in- 
cludes the  ethical  ideal  of  what  ought  to  be. 

The  arts  and  sciences  of  culture,  the  tools  and  weapons  of 
civilization  are  instruments.  Man  creates  them,  uses  them,  and 
drops  them  for  other  similar  things  for  the  sake  of  getting  value 
out  of  life.  Does  not  this  instrumentalism,  as  we  may  call  it, 
yield  us  a  good  working  definition  of  our  subject,  of  civiliza- 
tion—getting values  out  of  life  and  putting  values  into  life? 
Value  may  stand  as  the  constant  with  all  sorts  of  variables  about 
it.  The  Jews  valued  a  temple,  the  Greeks  an  academy,  the  Ro- 
mans a  forum,  mediaeval  Christianity  a  church,  modern  life  a 
machine.  Eastern  civilization  will  be  one  thing,  western  aa~ 


PROGRESSIVE     STAGES 

IN   WRITING  AND 

PRINTING 


EGYPTIAN 

HIEROGLYPHICS 

AND  CARVING 


FRAGMENT  OF  THE 

Prisse  Papyrus, 
IN  HIERATIC  WRITING, 
FOUND  IN  UPPER  EGYPT 


EARLY  PRESS 
(facing  page  56) 


Publishers'  Photo  Service,  N.  Y. 
MODERN  ROTARY  PRESS 


THE  DOUBLE  TASK  OF  CIVILIZATION        57 

other,  for  the  East  desires  an  autocratic,  the  West  a  democratic 
way  of  living.  An  ancient  felt  that  he  was  civilized  when  his 
State  produced  an  artist,  a  philosopher,  a  legislator;  a  modern 
feels  civilized  because  he  has  a  scientist,  a  business  man,  a 
plumber.  These  differences  in  civilization,  all  other  things  be- 
ing equal,  are  due  to  differences  in  valuation,  due  likewise  to 
what  man  expects  from  nature  and  the  way  in  which  he  goes 
about  to  realize  that  expectation.  The  history  of  civilization,  pre- 
served in  museums  in  the  form  of  relics,  is  largely  a  history  of 
these  instruments  of  value.  They  are  the  mute  books  of  the  past 
or  a  picture-language  of  those  civilizations,  differing  in  dates  and 
localities,  which  bear  testimony  to  man's  effort  to  perfect  his  outer 
existence.  They  are  direct  evidences  of  civilization. 

THE  DOUBLE  TASK  OF  CIVILIZATION 

The  fact  of  civilization  in  the  changed  appearance  of  the  globe 
invites  explanation.  The  earth  is  not  what  it  was  when  man 
appeared,  still  less  is  it  like  the  original  earth  that  emerged  from 
the  sun  and  then  became  the  scene  of  storms  from  above  and  vol- 
canoes below.  It  is  now  a  humanized  planet  thoroughly  marked 
by  the  hand  of  man,  the  scene  of  his  various  civilizations.  These 
may  be  regarded  as  relationships  —  the  adaptation  of  man  to  earth, 
the  adjustment  of  man  to  man.  We  may  accept  these  civilizations 
as  facts  or,  at  least,  as  trends,  and  then  cast  about  for  explanations 
of  them.  In  so  doing,  we  are  confronted  by  the  question  whether 
civilization  is  the  work  of  nature  or  of  man;  whether  it  is  the 
extension  of  natural  causation  or  the  introduction  of  a  new  force 
in  the  form  of  the  human  will,  the  environmental  or  volitional. 
The  very  fact  that  human  beings  in  groups  appear  in  time  and 
are  located  in  space  encourages  the  view  that  the  time-space  order 
produces  a  civilization  just  as  it  brings  forth  a  family  of  plants  or 
species  of  animals.  We  must  consider  to  what  extent  civilization 
is  physical  and  in  what  ways  differences  in  civilizations  are 
geographical. 

In  perfected  civilizations,  such  as  we  find  in  modern  Europe,  it 
is  obvious  that  mind  predominates  over  matter,  hence  it  would 
be  absurd  to  assert  that  England  and  France,  Germany  and  Italy 


58  THE  FACTORS  IN  CIVILIZATION 

rejoiced  in  forms  of  politics,  economics,  and  social  life  peculiar  to 
the  conditions  of  sky  and  soil  and  dependent  upon  climate  and 
geographical  location.  The  environment  in  Europe  is  pretty  much 
the  same;  the  types  of  civilization  are  various.  The  geographical 
contrast  between  England  and  the  United  States  has  not  been 
able  to  prevent  the  development  of  similar  civilizations.  Civiliza- 
tion in  general  is  dependent  upon  environment  only  in  the  way 
that  life  is  dependent  upon  nature.  The  forms  that  civilization 
takes  must  be  sought  in  human  nature  itself.  "  Do  not  talk  to 
me  about  environmental  determinants/'  said  Hegel  in  an  oft- 
quoted  comment;  "  where  once  lived  the  Greeks  now  live  the 
Turks."  Now,  how  is  human  civilization  to  be  explained? 

DETERMINISM 

The  theory  of  civilization,  as  indeed  of  the  whole  course  of 
things  natural  and  human,  was  elaborated  originally  by  the 
Greeks.    Their  first  conception  was  that  of  Fate  or  a  scheme  of 
absolute  decrees  which  fulfill  themselves  in  independence  of  both 
natural  forces  and  human  wills.    We  sense  this  in  Greek  religion 
and  see  it  exemplified  in  Greek  tragedy.    This  idea  of  divine 
determinism  reappeared  in  the  theology  of  St.  Augustine,  who 
substituted  the  will  of  God  for  the  caprices  of  pagan  deities.    In 
modern  times,  it  was  exemplified  by  Bossuet  and  Vico.    A  more 
intelligible  conception  of  the  course  of  things  appeared  in  Plato 
and  Aristotle,  who  viewed  things  in  terms  of  ends  or  purposes  and 
organized  the  world  according  to  the  idea  of  the  Good.    This 
view  that  we  may  style  teleological  determinism  appeared  in 
modern  times  in  the  philosophies  of  history  represented  by 
Herder,  Hegel,  and  Ranke.    In  addition  to  such  religious  and 
ethical  determinism,  we  have  the  doctrine  of  Physical  Necessity 
as  this  culminated  in  Democritus.    It  was  in  a  sense  a  return  to 
the  original  idea  of  fate,  but  was  even  more  drastic  in  that  it  exer- 
cised sway  over  both  earth  and  heaven,  dominating  both  men  and 
gods.    Modern  thought  exalts  and  uses  this  method  as  Scientific 
Determinism  growing  out  of  the  mechanistic  views  of  nature 
which  have  prevailed  since  the  days  of  Newton.   We  observe  such 
determinism  in  Comte,  Spencer,  and  St  Simon.    It  is  the  third 


PHYSICAL  CAUSATION  59 

type  of  social  causation  that  prevails  today;  we  must  see  to  what 
extent  civilization  is  a  matter  of  determinism. 

Those  who  believe  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  social  science 
comparable  to  natural  science  are  bound  to  premise  some  sort  of 
causation.  These  fall  into  two  main  groups,  which  we  may  call 
the  physical  determinists  and  the  social  determinists.  They  agree 
upon  the  general  principle  of  environment  as  the  cause  of  social 
phenomena,  but  disagree  on  the  point  of  whether  this  is  natural 
or  social.  The  physical  determinist  attempts  to  explain  the  facts 
of  civilization  upon  the  basis  of  natural  forces  as  the  mere  move- 
ment of  particles  in  space.  This  is  the  view  taken  by  A.  P.  Weiss. 
Or  the  physical  cause  of  social  phenomena  may  be  attributed  to 
the  dissipation  of  energy,  as  do  Ostwald,  Brooks,  and  Henry 
Adams.  Sometimes  the  processes  of  bio-chemistry  are  assumed 
as  causes.  We  have  then  what  amounts  to  an  unusual  branch  of 
"  social  physics,"  "  social  thermodynamics,"  or  "  social  chemistry." 
Since  these  theories  deal  with  the  lives  and  activities  of  human 
beings,  they  may  be  criticized  on  the  ground  that  they  have  to 
leave  out  the  psychological  phenomena  of  sensation  and  feeling, 
will  and  purpose.  More  generally,  such  physical  theories  ignore 
the  qualities  of  the  data  with  which  they  are  dealing  and  make 
the  cardinal  mistake  of  trying  to  explain  different  sets  of  phe- 
nomena, the  physical  and  social,  upon  the  basis  of  the  physical 
alone. 

PHYSICAL  CAUSATION 

The  physical  theory  of  civilization  assumes  a  more  definite 
and  plausible  form  in  the  character  of  geographic  determinism, 
which  includes  the  influence  of  location  and  climate,  soil  and 
food.  This  physical  theory  of  civilization  was  developed  by 
Montesquieu  (1689-1755),  made  classic  by  Buckle  (1821-1862), 
developed  scientifically  by  Ratzel  (1844-1904),  and  brought  down 
to  date  by  Huntington  (1876-  ).  The  physiographic  view  of 
causation  is  plausible.  Most  of  us  are  inclined  to  believe  that  there 
are  better  civilizations  in  the  northern  than  in  the  southern  hemi- 
sphere, even  when  there  is  the  marvelous  civilization  of  ancient 
Egypt.  In  like  manner,  we  are  in  the  habit  of  looking  to  the 
West  rather  than  to  the  East  for  outer  perfection  of  human  life, 


60  THE  FACTORS  IN  CIVILIZATION 

even  if  there  are  good  examples  of  oriental  civilization  in  India 
and  China.  In  a  word,  we  are  accustomed  to  believe  that  civiliza- 
tion is  Europeanization.  But  we  are  not  so  sure  that  nature  itself 
is  responsible  for  what  has  taken  place  in  such  a  restricted  portion 
of  the  globe.  Peoples  in  different  zones  will  dress  differently, 
dwell  in  abodes  of  different  sorts,  and  have  different  diets;  and 
with  primitive  tribes  these  natural  causes  springing  up  from  the 
various  environments  may  have  produced  social  effects.  The 
matter  is  not  so  easily  shown  after  civilization  has  reached  a  defi- 
nite stage  of  development. 

Even  with  primitive  peoples,  it  is  not  the  presence  of  the  en- 
vironment but  the  use  of  what  it  contains  that  affects  the  mode  of 
human  life.  The  Americans  who  were  native  to  this  continent 
did  not  respond  to  earth  the  way  the  Americans  of  the  last  four 
hundred  years  have  been  doing.  When  the  comparison  is  not 
that  between  the  native  and  the  late  settler,  but  has  to  do  with 
different  tribes,  the  same  environment  will  bring  forth  different 
reactions.  We  observe  this  in  the  arctic  regions,  where  the  natives 
might  seem  to  be  under  the  complete  domination  of  nature. 
However,  in  the  matter  of  housing,  we  might  assume  that  those 
who  live  in  similar  latitudes  would  dwell  in  similar  abodes  deter- 
mined by  the  climate.  But,  as  Goldenweiser  points  out,2  the 
Eskimos  of  arctic  America  build  snow  houses,  as  one  would  ex- 
pect; but  just  across  the  Behring  Strait,  in  northeastern  Siberia, 
the  arctic  Chukchi  build  and  live  in  tents  made  of  hides. 

In  the  domain  of  primitive  industry  the  same  indifference  to 
natural  conditions  shows  itself.  The  distribution  of  clay  in  North 
America  is  one  thing,  the  development  of  pottery  another.  The 
material  is  found  practically  everywhere,  but  the  use  of  it  is  con- 
fined to  definite  districts.  "  Roughly  speaking,"  says  Golden- 
weiser, "  a  line  drawn  from  the  northeastern  corner  of  the  conti- 
nent to  the  southwestern  one  would  divide  North  America  into 
a  pot-making  district  south  and  east  of  the  line  and  one  in  which 
no  pottery  is  made  north  and  west  of  it."  8  In  the  case  of  those 
who  accept  the  suggestion  of  nature  and  make  pottery  out  o£  the 
material  offered,  the  environmental  force  appears  to  be  at  work. 

2  Early  Civilization,  pp.  294-295. 

3  Ib.,  p.  294. 


SOCIAL  DETERMINISM  fa 

But  with  other  tribes  in  a  similar  situation,  tribes  using  but  not 
manufacturing  pots,  another  factor  enters  in  —  that  o£  barter. 
They  buy  or  obtain  their  pottery  by  exchange;  in  which  case  it  is 
the  relation  of  man  to  man,  not  the  adaptation  of  man  to  nature, 
that  becomes  an  effective  force  in  civilization.  All  tribes  of  primi- 
tive men,  as  indeed  all  groups  of  civilized  ones,  depend  upon  na- 
ture at  large  for  their  existence,  but  this  is  far  from  saying  that 
their  particular  forms  of  civilization  are  dependent  upon  geo- 
graphical factors.  These  forms  of  social  life  are  more  dependent 
upon  the  creative  character  of  the  human  mind  itself. 

SOCIAL  DETERMINISM 

But  even  when  we  advance  from  nature  to  society  and  seek 
the  cause  of  civilization  in  men  rather  than  in  things,  we  do  not 
escape  from  deterministic  theories.  Both  the  theories  of  physical 
and  social  causation  have  one  thing  in  common  —  the  idea  of  en- 
vironment. But  the  social  conception  of  environmental  influence 
is  to  the  effect  that  it  is  not  something  given  in  nature,  as  soil,  or 
something  found  in  man,  as  instinct,  but  social  organization  as  a 
whole  that  acts  causally.  Typical  theories  of  social  causation  in- 
volve the  economic  and  the  religious.  According  to  Karl  Marx 
the  course  of  civilization  as  well  as  the  creation  and  modification 
of  institutions  is  determined  by  the  economic  factor,  the  way  in 
which  wealth  is  produced.  Accordingly  a  feudal  system  of  civi- 
lization will  have  one  set  of  institutions,  capitalism  another.  Max 
Weber  finds  a  religious  root  to  modern  economics.  Originally 
modern  capitalism  was  confronted  by  naive  piety  and  the  desire 
for  gain.  Religion  called  upon  man  to  serve  God  by  labor  and 
deny  himself  worldly  indulgence.  The  result  was  the  accumula- 
tion of  wealth.  In  this  predicament,  the  Calvinist  regarded  man 
as  only  an  "  administrator  "  of  his  God-given  wealth  and  looked 
upon  his  business  as  his  "  calling."  The  inference  that  we  draw 
from  Weber's  religious  sociology  is  that  our  present  form  of  civi- 
lization has  a  religious  background  and  that,  indeed,  all  economic 
relations  are  based  upon  religion  in  the  form  of  sanctified 
tradition.4 

4  General  Economic  History,  tr.  Knight,  Ch.  XXX. 


62  THE  FACTORS  IN  CIVILIZATION 

In  addition  to  the  purely  social  attempt  to  account  for  civiliza- 
tion, there  is  the  popular  conception  of  civilization  as  the  work  of 
the  "  great  man."  "  Every  institution/'  said  Emerson,  "  is  the 
lengthened  shadow  of  some  man."  This  is  the  reason  why  we 
attribute  the  institution  of  law  to  Moses,  empire  to  Alexander  and 
Caesar  and  Charlemagne,  military  ability  to  Napoleon,  philosophy 
to  Plato.  But  imagine  any  one  of  these  supermen  reappearing 
upon  earth  and  trying  to  live  up  to  his  reputation!  It  would  be 
impossible  for  him  to  fill  the  place  we  have  made  for  him  in  our 
civilization  and  culture.  This  does  not  mean  that  we  should  "  de- 
bunk "  the  biographies  of  these  heroes,  a  process  which  often  con- 
sists in  no  more  than  relating  real  or  imaginary  scandals  in  their 
lives.  It  means  that  we  should  realize  how  such  greatness  comes 
about  and  what  purpose  it  serves.  If  we  are  willing  to  admit  that 
such  men  were  not  supermen  but  were  only  quantitatively  differ- 
ent from  the  rank  and  file  of  men,  we  can  account  for  them  psy- 
chologically and  evaluate  them  sociologically. 

The  psychology  of  the  man  who  is  great  in  the  minds  of  people 
generally  involves  what  is  called  empathy,  or  in-feeling;  it  means 
the  self-identification  of  another  and  many  others  with  the  ex- 
cellences and  exploits  of  the  great  man.  It  is  as  though  we  our- 
selves had  said  and  done  the  great  word  or  deed  with  which  his 
name  is  associated*  When  this  is  done  on  a  large  scale  with  a  liv- 
ing person,  it  produces  what  we  call  the  "  host  of  admirers  "  and 
makes  the  man's  name,  even  if  it  be  "  Smith,"  a  "  name  to  con- 
jure with."  Let  any  one  examine  the  nature  of  his  admiration 
for  a  great  man  in  athletics,  aviation,  finance,  or  politics  and  he 
will  find  that  in  admiring  his  hero's  exploits  he  is  so  identifying 
himself  with  the  hero  that  it  is  as  though  he  himself  had  per- 
formed the  deed.  In  the  case  of  historical  characters,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  convenience  which  the  personification  of  an  institu- 
tion with  a  person  affords,  there  is  the  feeling  that  such  a  person's 
excellence  takes  effect  generally.  Plato's  thought  is  the  .wisdom 
of  mankind,  and  Napoleon's  ambition  its  inherent  will  ...  ' 

Emerson  expressed  this  when  he  said,  •    • 

"  I  am  owner  of  the  sphere, 
Of  the  seven  stars  and  solar  year; 


DETERMINISM  INADEQUATE  63 

Of  Caesar's  hand  and  Plato's  brain, 

Of  Lord  Christ's  heart  and  Shakespeare's  strain." 

The  social  value  of  such  empathy  is  considerable.  Religion  ad- 
vances and  keeps  its  hold  upon  faith  by  constant  appeal  to  the 
prophet.  Virtue  is  enhanced,  as  it  was  with  Cynic  and  Stoic,  by 
a  constant  reference  to  the  name  of  Socrates.  Patriotism  is  nour- 
ished by  incessant  reference  to  the  national  hero  and  the  annual 
celebration  of  his  birthday.  Such  empathy  is  of  vast  value  in  civi- 
lization, even  if  it  does  consist  of  naive  egoism  on  the  part  of  the 
host  of  admirers.  The  "  great  man  "  is  allowed  the  inherent 
greatness  of  each  member  of  the  social  order. 

DETERMINISM  INADEQUATE 

These  theories  of  civilization  concern  our  modes  of  existence, 
the  institutions  in  which  we  believe,  and  our  very  existence  as 
human  beings.  By  means  of  them  we  theorize  about  ourselves, 
so  that  they  are  not  to  be  dismissed  lighdy  or  accepted  carelessly. 
There  must  be  certain  factors  that  control  civilization,  although 
we  cannot  hope  to  reduce  them  to  a  general  principle  like  that 
of  gravity,  since  the  subject  of  society  is  too  complex,  human 
beings  too  thoroughly  individuated,  and  the  will  too  volatile  to 
admit  of  a  fixed  law.  If  we  do  lay  down  any  law,  it  may  be  ex- 
pected to  operate  statistically,  as  in  the  case  of  the  death-rate  and 
life-expectation  tables  employed  by  insurance  companies.  The 
principle  may  be  found  true  of  the  group  as  a  whole  but  not 
necessarily  for  any  individual  in  the  group.  If  there  is  to  be  de- 
terminism, it  must  be  in  harmony  with  the  subject  matter  over 
which  it  is  supposed  to  preside,  for  human  beings  in  their  struggle 
for  social  existence  cannot  be  expected  to  behave  like  particles  of 
matter  in  motion.  What  shall  we  say,  then,  of  such  social  causes 
as  soil  and  climate,  industry  and  religion? 

If  we  could  explain  civilization  by  such  means,  we  cannot  thus 
explain  it  away,  for  the  fact  of  civilization  remains  and  at  the 
same  time  exhibits  its  unique  value.  We  experience  and  appreci- 
ate the  kind  of  life  we  are  living  no  matter  how  it  was  brought 
into  existence.  The  meaning  of  a  thing  is  not  nullified,  or  its 


64  THE  FACTORS  IN  CIVILIZATION 

value  destroyed,  merely  because  it  is  the  effect  of  something  else. 
As  far  as  causation  itself  is  concerned,  we  deny  that  social  science 
has  the  right  to  select  something  salient  in  our  natural  or  social 
environment  and  isolate  it  as  the  cause  of  our  civilization.  A 
civilization  which  is  effected  by  the  soil  does  not  fail  to  reveal 
the  effect  of  religious  belief  also;  both  earth  and  heaven  operate 
upon  it  at  the  same  time.  If  a  social  group  is  influenced  by  the 
climate,  it  influences  itself  by  the  type  of  economic  environment 
it  has  itself  created.  Both  nature  and  man,  the  visible  and  the 
invisible  are  among  the  complex  causes  of  any  civilization. 

The  principle  of  causality,  which  is  so  important,  so  imperative 
in  the  field  of  natural  science,  is  by  no  means  as  dominant  in  the 
social  order.  Modern  science  has  used  the  principle  of  causality 
as  a  kind  of  model  according  to  which  all  physical  changes  were 
supposed  to  take  place.  But  the  physics  of  the  XXth  century  is 
not  so  thoroughly  pledged  to  determinism.  "  Those  who  main- 
tain a  deterministic  theory  of  mental  activity,"  says  Eddington, 
"  must  do  so  as  the  outcome  of  their  study  of  the  mind  itself  and 
not  with  the  idea  that  they  are  thereby  making  it  more  conform- 
able with  our  experimental  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  inorganic 
nature."  5  Hence  it  would  seem  that,  in  place  of  a  fixed  system  of 
cause  and  effect,  it  would  be  wiser  to  apply  to  the  phenomena  of 
civilization  the  idea  of  causality  as  an  influence  or  a  force  which 
tends  to  release  something  psychological  and  social  already  in  the 
human  mind.  The  idea  of  a  compelling  cause  so  efficacious  in 
simple  action  of  a  mechanical  sort  should  give  way  before  the 
notion  of  a  releasing  cause  as  that  which  brings  about  change  and 
development  in  the  social  order.  Hence  we  cannot  say  that  soil 
or  climate,  industry  or  religion  is  the  cause  of  a  civilization  in  its 
origin  or  in  the  changes  that  take  place  within  it.  The  best  we 
can  do  is  to  suggest  that  these  factors,  among  others,,  have  been 
influential  in  shaping  that  form  of  civilization. 

CIVILIZATION  AND  PROGRESS 

The  meaning,  or  connotation,  of  civilizatioa  appears  again  in 
the  concept  of  progress  or,  at  least,  change.  Movement  is  essen- 

5  The  Nature  of  the  Physical  World,  p.  295, 


CIVILIZATION  AND  PROGRESS  65 

tial  to  all  nature,  as  we  observe  from  the  rotation  of  stars,  the 
generation  of  new  orbs,  and  the  formation  of  a  planetary  system. 
On  the  planet  earth,  the  spirit  of  movement  shows  itself  in  the 
form  of  geological  and  geographical  changes  and  the  evolution  of 
plants  and  animals.  With  man,  there  is  this  general  sense  of 
natural  change  plus  the  restless,  creative  activity  of  his  will. 
When,  therefore,  man  conceives  of  the  idea  that  his  outer  situa- 
tion can  be  made  different,  he  avails  himself  of  the  spirit  of  change 
in  nature,  as  a  sailor  makes  use  of  the  wind,  and  adds  to  the  spirit 
of  motion  in  general  certain  activities  of  his  own,  as  manufacture 
and  building.  The  result  of  this  general  consideration  is  the  idea 
of  progress,  whence  it  comes  about  that  civilization  is  practically 
the  history  of  civilization;  history  in  the  sense  of  a  force  rather 
than  a  record  of  the  effects  which  that  force  produces.  How  has 
that  historical  force  been  operating? 

Before  we  can  attempt  to  cope  with  the  particular  forces  that 
work  in  history  we  must  try  to  determine  their  general  direction. 
This  involves  the  simple  notion  of  "up"  or  "down";  simple 
when  stated  in  such  a  geometrical  way,  but  extremely  compli- 
cated when  we  attempt  to  make  historical  events  conform  to  it. 
When  we  recall  that  mankind,  in  its  self-humanization,  has 
passed  through  the  stages  of  religion,  philosophy,  and  science, 
we  are  inclined  to  tolerate  the  idealistic  notion  that  civilization 
had  a  heavenly  origin.  Long  ago  mankind  began  to  entertain  that 
beautiful  but  pathetic  picture  of  itself  in  the  form  of  a  myth  con- 
cerning the  Golden  Age.  But  when  we  recall,  again,  that  the  hu- 
manizing of  the  race  was  effected  by  such  simple  factors  as  tool- 
making,  crude  attempts  at  language,  and  primitive  society,  we 
are  driven  to  the  other  extreme  —  that  of  an  earthly  origin  and  a 
painfully  slow  development  of  civilized  existence.  How  are  we 
to  decide  between  the  natural  and  the  supernatural  theories  as  to 
the  origin  of  civilization  and  culture? 

Before  we  abandon  the  supernaturalistic  conception  of  an  origi- 
nal condition  of  primitive  perfection,  we  can  afford  to  ask  our- 
selves to  what  extent  and  in  what  way  this  ideal  can  be  of  service 
to  us.  The  notion  involved  in  it  is  that  of  an  inverted  view  of 
history,  figured  as  a  cone  balanced  upon  its  apex  and  representing 
a  descent  from  the  greater  to  the  less,  from  perfection  to  decay. 


66  THE  FACTORS  IN  CIVILIZATION 

It  is  made  more  plausible  than  preposterous  by  the  historical  fact 
that  the  broad  and  intuitive  ideals  of  religion  preceded  the  tighter 
reasonings  of  philosophy  as  these  were  far  in  advance  of  the 
closer  calculations  of  science.  This  first  or  celestial  age  was  char- 
acterized by  a  psychology  wherein  revelations,  myths,  and  epic 
poems  were  the  serene  product  of  the  human  mind;  it  is  only  by 
forgetting  our  science  and  philosophy  that  we  can  exercise  any- 
thing like  such  powers  of  imagination.  We  cannot  credit  the  idea 
that  mankind  has  fallen  from  the  superior,  if  not  perfect,  state  of 
existence;  just  as  little  can  we  discredit  the  idea  that  the  mind  of 
man  has  "  fallen  "  from  the  original  state  of  religious  insight, 
artistic  intuition,  and  the  worldly  wisdom  expressed  of  old  in 
fables. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  we  assume  the  naturalistic  point  of 
view  and  postulate  progress  along  a  vertical  line,  we  discover  to 
our  disappointment  that  the  facts  of  history  do  not  lend  them- 
selves to  our  abstract  plan,  which,  in  itself,  is  almost  as  naive  as 
the  idea  it  would  combat.  The  supernaturalistic  view  involved 
perfection  at  the  beginning;  the  naturalistic  idea  is  that  of  a  con- 
stant improvement  with  perfection  in  the  method  of  progress. 
The  same  contrast,  the  same  difficulty  in  making  a  choice  between 
views,  appears  again  in  the  matter  of  education  concerning  what 
man  should  think,  how  he  should  speak,  and  what  he  should  do. 
The  older  view  attributed  this  insight  to  the  instruction  man 
received  from  divine  beings,  while  the  modern  idea  is  to  the  effect 
that  man  has  instructed  himself.  Man  made  society  by  entering 
into  a  social  compact  with  his  fellows;  he  fashioned  his  morality 
by  observing  the  useful  consequences  of  virtue,  and  discovered 
his  religion  by  means  of  reason.  We  feel  that  neither  gods  nor 
men  were  directly  responsible  for  civilization  and  culture. 

WHAT  PROGRESS  MEANS 

The  principle  of  progress  appeals  to  us  as  something  obvious, 
We  live  in  the  intellectual  atmosphere  of  evolution,  which  im- 
presses us  with  the  reality  and  ever-forward  thrust  of  time.  We 
observe  scientific  discoveries  every  day  with  the  result  that  the 
finding  of  a  new  planet,  a  new  chemical  element,  or  a  new  form 


WHAT  PROGRESS  MEANS  67 

of  matter,  such  as  the  neutron,  is  reported  in  the  news  as  a  matter 
of  general  interest.  Just  as  fully  do  we  observe  new  inventions 
which  are  calculated  to  save  labor,  increase  entertainment,  and 
add  to  the  interest  of  life.  There  are  new  departures  in  art,  new 
movements  in  religion,  and  new  schemes  for  social  existence. 
We  behold  the  spirit  that  maketh  all  things  new.  For  this  reason 
we  find  it  difficult  to  sympathize  with  those  who  speak  despair- 
ingly of  progress.  Our  problem  is  that  of  resting  in  the  present 
and  conserving  the  past  in  the  face  of  the  energetic  futurism  that 
keeps  thrusting  itself  upon  us.  However,  the  idea  of  progress  is 
a  comparatively  new  one  and  we  are  hardly  able  to  handle  it. 

The  idea  of  human  progress,  which  had  been  in  the  French 
mind  for  a  century,  culminated  in  Condorcet  (1743-1794)  and  his 
famous  Essay  on  the  progress  of  the  human  spirit.  Among  the 
French  the  idea  of  progress  arose  in  connection  with  the  "  quar- 
rel between  the  ancients  and  moderns  "  as  to  the  superiority  of 
classic  and  modern  culture.  The  "  moderns  "  asserted  that  the 
present,  inheriting  all  of  the  past  and  adding  its  own  knowledge, 
was  superior  to  the  past  not  only  because  it  came  later,  but  also 
because  it  was  able  to  improve  upon  what  had  gone  before.  We 
ourselves  can  afford  to  pass  over  the  aesthetical  arguments  used  to 
establish  this  particular  thesis  and  can  confine  our  attention  to  the 
main  idea  —  that  the  nature  of  progress  is  such  as  to  include  the 
culture  of  the  past  and  to  add  to  it  the  values  of  succeeding  ages. 
Fontenelle  (1657-1757)  especially  was  enthusiastic  over  the  new 
idea  and  did  all  in  his  power  to  inspire  his  generation  with  faith 
in  progress. 

But,  in  spite  of  enthusiasm  for  progress  manifest  in  the  XVIIIth 
century  and  the  belief  in  evolution  engendered  by  the  XlXth 
century,  we  are  inclined  to  assume  a  critical  attitude  toward  such 
a  forward  philosophy.  Duration  may  be  a  real  process  which 
carries  mankind  along  with  it,  but  it  seems  as  though  the  gains 
'of  "the  future  might  have  to  be  balanced  by  losses  of  the  past. 
Growth  may  mean  outgrowth.  When  one,  like  the  Aposde  Paul, 
becomes  a  man,  he  puts  away  childish  things.  If  we  have  ad- 
vanced beyond  the  Greeks  in  our  science,  we  have  fallen  behind 
their  standards  of  art;  and  if  we  Have  excelled  the  mediaevals  in 
the  breadth  of  our  modern  vision,  we  may  have  done  so  at  the 


68  THE  FACTORS  IN  CIVILIZATION 

sacrifice  of  spiritual  depth.  The  idea  of  absolute  progress,  whereby 
the  spirit  of  mankind  moves  through  history  increasing  its  ac- 
celeration like  a  falling  body  or  accumulating  its  experience  like 
a  rolling  snowball,  seems  inconsistent  with  experience.  In  addi- 
tion to  this  physical  impossibility  of  human  progress,  there  is  the 
moral  issue  of  justice. 

If  progress  is  absolute  in  its  character,  the  benefits  of  human 
history  would  be  experienced  only  by  those  who  came  at  the  end 
of  the  historical  series.  Their  ancestors  would  be  but  their  fore- 
runners and  servants.  Then,  although  the  idea  in  itself  seems 
ridiculous,  we  might  ask  when  and  where  would  these  fortunate 
last  people  come  into  final  possession  of  life's  total  benefit?  It 
is  more  reasonable  and  more  ethical  to  assume  that,  in  a  way, 
each  age  enjoys  all  that  there  is  in  life  whether  this  be  in  the  form 
of  art  or  religion  or  science,  just  as  all  peoples  on  earth  enjoy  the 
light  and  warmth  of  the  sun  at  different  times  and  in  diff erent 
ways.  If  an  age  lacks  insight  into  the  mysteries  of  nature,  it  may 
enjoy  the  ability  to  perceive  nature  aesthetically;  if  it  is  without 
rational  insight,  it  may  find  compensation  for  this  in  the  naivete 
of  its  faith. 

PAST  AND  PRESENT 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  we  are  more  inclined  to  envy  the 
men  of  the  past  than  the  supermen  of  the  future.  No  matter  how 
much  we  pride  ourselves  on  our  sophistication,  we  cannot  help 
wishing  we  might  have  been  in  the  position  of  Shakespeare  and 
Copernicus,  of  Homer  and  Archimedes.  For  the  most  part,  the 
culture  and  civilization  that  we  now  enjoy  so  fills  us  that  we  are 
not  inclined  to  envy  those  who,  coming  later,  will  live  in  a  better 
world  and  enjoy  brighter  views  of  nature.  The  future  will  in- 
herit our  wealth,  but  it  will  have  to  pay  our  bills.  If  we  bequeath 
it  more  knowledge,  it  will  be  required  to  synthesize  it;  and  if 
we  convey  to  it  our  secret  of  producing  wealth,  it  will  have  to 
find  the  proper  means  of  distributing  it.  The  course  of  civiliza- 
tion is  such  that  it  keeps  balancing  its  accounts  as  it  goes  along. 

The  principle  of  evolution  represents  the  development  of  civili- 
zation in  the  most  attractive  if  not  the  most  seductive  form.  The 
general  idea  of  transformation  from  age  to  age  is  by  no  means 


STAGES  OF  PROGRESS  69 

new  in  the  study  of  mankind.  The  Hebrews  used  the  idea  in  the 
form  of  a  spiritual  heritage  passed  from  generation  to  generation, 
while  St.  Paul  considered  the  course  of  the  old  order  as  a  prepara- 
tion for  the  new.  "  The  law,"  said  he,  "  was  a  schoolmaster  to 
bring  us  to  Christ."6  The  Greeks  and  Romans  presented  the 
idea  in  the  form  of  a  descent  from  the  gods  to  the  heroes  and 
men.  In  the  Middle  Ages,  the  notion  of  development  was  such 
as  to  involve  the  development  of  doctrine  from  the  Aposdes  to 
the  Fathers  and  thence  to  the  Schoolmen.  The  general  renascence 
which  followed  the  close  of  the  mediaeval  period  broke  up  this 
continuity  by  introducing  the  idea  of  something  catastrophic. 
The  idea  of  continuous  development  was  far  from  being  fur- 
thered by  the  mechanistic  ideas  of  the  XVIIth  and  the  rational- 
istic notions  of  the  XVIIIth  centuries. 

It  was  in  the  XlXth  century  that  the  evolutionary  conception  of 
history  took  hold  of  the  modern  mind  and  brought  it  to  a  per- 
fection which  is  easier  to  attack  than  to  rival  In  a  general  way, 
we  may  associate  this  developmental  idea  with  the  nebular  theory 
of  the  solar  system  propounded  by  Laplace,  the  evolutionary 
geology  of  Lyell,  and  the  system  of  organic  evolution  developed 
by  Darwin.  With  such  splendid  theories  behind  us,  we  find  it 
difficult  to  avoid  the  implications  of  evolution.  They  impress  us 
with  the  feeling  that  all  nature  advances  and  that  its  line  of  prog- 
ress is  uniform,  gradual,  and  progressive.  They  suggest  to  our 
minds  that  the  physical  idea  of  accretion  and  the  organic  principle 
of  growth  persist  beyond  the  domain  of  the  natural  order  and 
become  the  patterns  of  human  history. 

STAGES  OF  PROGRESS 

The  principle  of  progress  is  not  confined  to  the  ethical  ideal  of 
slow  but  sure  ascent  to  a  Utopian  condition;  it  is  a  working  rule 
of  social  science  in  its  attempt  to  account  for  the  passage  of  the 
race  from  nature  to  some  form  of  civilization.  It  is  based  upon 
the  idea  of  definite  stages  in  the  development  of  the  race  with 
the  presumption  that  these  stages  are  steps  upward.  It  is  assumed 
that  society  passed  through  just  such  states  of  civilized  existence 

6  Gal.  Ill,  24. 


70  THE  FACTORS  IN  CIVILIZATION 

in  order  to  arrive  at  stable  conditions  wholly  distinct  from  any 
ideal  conception  of  its  general  striving  after  perfection.  Now  in 
both  instances,  of  definite  development  by  stages  and  of  the  gen- 
eral approximation  to  perfection,  the  principle  of  progress  is  not 
easily  maintained. 

In  connection  with  the  family  or  household  group,  the  theoreti- 
cal program  of  classic  evolution  demands  a 'certain  form  of  matri- 
monial development.  The  first  stage  of  this  is  sex  promiscuity 
marked  by  uncontrolled  and  unorganized  sex  relationships.  The 
second  stage  in  the  evolutionary  process  was  that  of  group  mar- 
riage. Here  the  clan  forms  a  matrimonial  unit;  a  group  of 
women  become  the  wives  of  a  group  of  men.  The  children  be- 
long to  the  maternal  clan.  From  this  second  stage,  the  develop- 
ment was  to  the  gens,  or  clanlike  organization,  with  the  children 
belonging  to  the  father.  B  Out  of  this  has  come  the  family  in  the 
modem  sense  of  the  term.  But,  apart  from  theory,  it  is  doubtful 
whether  any  such  fourfold  development  took  place;  it  is  more 
reasonable  to  suppose  that  a  family  relationship  of  some  sort 
rather  than  promiscuity  was  the  origin  of  the  social  order.  "  Con- 
trary to  a  widespread  notion  for  which  anthropologists  are  in 
part  responsible,  the  family  consisting  of  husband,  wife,  and  chil- 
dren is  found  everywhere,"  says  Goldenweiser,  who  sums  up  the 
whole  situation  as  follows: 

"  There  seems  to  be  no  evidence  that  a  state  of  promiscuity  ever 
existed;  again,  the  condition  of  group  marriage,  far  from  being  a 
universal  antecedent  of  individual  marriage,  seems  to  constitute, 
in  the  rare  instances  where  it  occurs,  an  outgrowth  of  a  pre- 
existing state  of  individual  marriage.  The  family  and  local 
group  are  universal  forms  of  social  organization,  extending  to  the 
very  beginning.  In  some  tribes  the  clan  organization  never  de- 
velops. In  others  the  clan  follows  the  family-village  organization. 
In  still  others,  the  gens  follows  directly  upon  this  early  organiza- 
tion. The  development  of  the  gens  out  of  the  clan  has  appar- 
ently occurred  only  in  a  few  instances.  It  must,  moreover,  be 
remembered  that  the  family-village  grouping  persists  through  all 
the  other  forms  of  organization."  7 

The  same  discrepancy  between  observed  fact  and  proposed 

7  Early  Civilization,  pp.  24-25. 


STANDARDS  OF  PROGRESS  7I 

theory  appears  in  the  well-known  triad  of  hunting,  nomadic  life, 
and  agriculture.  It  is  assumed  that  primitive  civilizations  every- 
where must  pass  through  these  three  stages.  As  for  the  first 
level  of  human  industry,  it  may  be  said  that  it  traces  back  to  the 
beginning  of  man's  life  but  does  not  cease  after  his  civilization  has 
reached  a  higher  level.  It  may  be  added,  also,  that  tribes  have 
practiced  agriculture  without  having  passed  through  the  nomadic 
stage  of  development.  In  like  manner,  we  may  express  doubt 
concerning  the  fixity  of  the  rule  that  requires  a  tribe  to  pass  in 
regular  order  through  the  three  industrial  stages  of  stone,  bronze, 
and  iron.  These  divisions  of  industry  are  of  value  as  norms  for 
modern  theory,  but  cannot  serve  as  rules  of  primitive  civilization. 
Even  if  social  science  could  lay  down  laws  of  development  in 
connection  with  social  life,  we  should  still  be  unable  to  determine 
whether  general  progress  was  the  rule  of  the  race. 

STANDARDS  OF  PROGRESS 

Civilization  is  in  itself  a  progressive  concern  in  the  sense  that 
it  is  not  stable,  but  ever  changing.  Whether  we  can  evince  the 
perfecting  progress  of  civilization  from  its  mobility  is  another 
matter,  but  one  that  cannot  be  avoided.  As  we  realize  from  the 
foregoing,  it  is  difficult  to  measure  the  progress  of  the  race  since 
we  have  no  standards  outside  the  life  of  the  race  itself.  But  this 
is  no  less  true  in  the  case  of  physical  motion  and  organic  evolu- 
tion; yet  we  do  not  hesitate  to  speak  of  motion  and  development. 
Man's  progress  has  been  on  the  human  level;  he  has  not  remained 
in  the  animal  order  or  approached  the  realm  of  angelic  existence. 
Yet  if  we  do  not  think  of  him  as  progressing  in  his  humanity, 
it  is  difficult  to  understand  how  he  survives.  The  fact  that  man 
has  not  become  extinct  and  shows  no  tendency  to  become  so,  may 
be  understood  as  a  form  of  progress,  the  progress  of  persistence. 
More  human  beings  live  and  live  longer  than  ever  before;  the 
population  increases  and  the  average  life  lengthens.  But  we 
prefer  to  think  of  progress  in  some  other  than  a  purely  physical 
manner. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  defend  the  idea  that  there  has  been  intel- 
lectual progress  since  the  dawn  of  civilization.  The  copious  li- 


72  THE  FACTORS  IN  CIVILIZATION 

braries  of  the  world  are  substantial  records  to  that  effect.  But  the 
intellectual  development  of  mankind  expresses  itself  in  more  sig- 
nificant ways  than  the  chronicles  of  science  might  indicate.  Scien- 
tific progress  shows  itself  today  in  the  development  of  mathemati- 
cal methods  and  physical  instruments  of  measurement.  Man 
has  measured  the  world  in  both  its  macroscopic  and  microscopic 
forms  and  is  in  a  position  to  make  his  knowledge  of  nature  ever 
more  detailed,  ever  more  accurate.  He  has  discovered  the  truth 
of  things  and  the  uses  to  which  they  may  be  put.  We  can  express 
doubt  about  intellectual  progress  only  as  we  observe  that  the 
knowledge  of  the  world  is  confined  to  a  minority  of  the  race,  the 
intelligentsia.  The  mass  of  mankind  is  still  ignorant  of  the  sim- 
plest truths  of  physical  science. 

However,  the  scientific  progress  of  the  race  is  appreciated  by 
practically  all  the  members  of  a  civilized  community  who  share 
in  the  benefits  of  applied  science.  Not  one  in  a  thousand  who 
daily  use  such  a  thing  as  the  telephone  is  able  to  explain  the  sci- 
entific principles  upon  which  this  useful  device  works.  How 
many  who  talk  freely  about  their  car  or  radio  are  aware  of  the 
physical  principles  which  these  omnipresent  devices  involve? 
And  yet  the  scientific  progress  of  the  world  has  been  such  as  to  in- 
clude these  lay  members  of  the  intellectual  community.  Hence,  if 
the  question  of  progress  is  to  be  based  upon  advancement  along 
scientific  and  physical  lines,  there  can  be  no  doubt  about  its  au- 
thenticity. The  application  of  science  and  to  some  extent  the 
popularization  of  its  more  spectacular  truths  have  been  such  as  to 
include  the  whole  population  in  the  intellectual  progress  of  mod- 
ern times.  The  result  is  that  we  generally  live  in  an  enlightened 
age  even  when  few  members  of  the  population  are  cognizant  of 
the  conditions  of  their  enlightenment. 

PHYSICAL  AND  MORAL  PROGRESS 

The  application  of  intellect  to  nature  has  brought  about  genu- 
ine physical  progress;  can  the  same  be  said  about  the  application 
of  the  mind  to  man  himself?  This  raises  the  question  of  moral 
progress.  It  is  easy  to  deny  that  man's  effort  to  attain  to  the  Good 
has  been  as  successful  as  his  attempt  to  arrive  at  the  True. 


PHYSICAL  AND  MORAL  PROGRESS  73 

He  has  found  nature  obedient,  himself  disobedient.  After  the 
idea  of  progress  had  been  established,  its  critics  began  to  appear. 
Goethe  denied  that  men  had  become  more  moral  in  the  sense  of 
being  happier  and  better;  Schopenhauer's  conception  of  life  made 
the  idea  of  betterment  impossible.  In  our  day  the  repudiation  of 
progress  has  been  put  forth  in  most  spectacular  manner  by  Nietz- 
sche and  Bernard  Shaw,  both  of  whom  await  the  birth  of  the 
superman.  But  the  difficulty  with  those  who  deny  the  reality  of 
progress  is  that  they,  while  asserting  that  there  has  been  no 
progress  up  to  the  present  time,  expect  that  there  can  be  progress 
from  the  present  onward.  If,  however,  mankind  had  not  made 
moral  progress  since  the  days  of  the  Hittites,  it  is  a  question 
whether  he  can  initiate  a  forward  movement  now.  If  there  has 
been  no  moral  advance,  there  never  will  be. 

Among  those  who  are  pessimistic  about  the  past  and  as  optimis- 
tic over  the  future  are  the  socialists  and  eugenists.  One  party 
seeks  a  better  state,  the  other  a  better  citizen.  But  if  the  present 
order  is  as  imperfect  as  the  socialist  claims,  it  should  be  good 
enough  for  the  average  person  or  even  for  one  who  is  inferior. 
Hence  the  eugenist  movement  is  not  so  convincing  as  it  might 
be.  Inadvertently,  both  socialist  and  eugenist  —  the  one  thinking 
of  a  better  state,  the  other  of  a  better  citizen  —  tend  to  lend  their 
approval  to  the  established  order.  The  socialist  favors  industrial 
civilization,  but  would  have  its  benefits  more  equally  distributed. 
The  eugenist,  who  is  likely  to  be  contemptuous  of  the  proletariat, 
implies  that  society  is  superior  to  the  individual,  hence  that  we 
should  have  fewer  and  better  specimens  of  the  human  race. 
These  are  examples  of  the  present  distaste  for  the  present  and  a 
corresponding  enthusiasm  for  the  future.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  man  has  progressed;  in  the  present  age  he  seems  to  have 
progressed  too  far  from  his  older  way  of  living  with  its  standards 
of  life. 

Civilization  eyes  the  future,  but  is  bound  to  be  more  deeply 
interested  in  the  past,  although  not  the  past  that  has  simply 
moved  along  in  time.  It  is  the  office  of  history  to  pick  up  the 
past  and  carry  it  along  with  the  present,  if  not  to  prepare  it  for 
the  future.  Hence,  history  advises  us  to  study  the  roots  of  civi- 
lization and  not  seek  merely  to  gather  its  fruits.  "  Deep  minds," 


74  THE  FACTORS  IN  CIVILIZATION 

said  Goethe,  "  need  to  be  nourished  by  the  past  as  well  as  the  fu- 
ture "  —  a  significant  remark  made  by  this  great  seer  in  connec- 
tion with  his  youthful  study  of  the  Old  Testament.8  We  shall 
recall  this,  as,  having  analyzed  the  idea  of  culture,  we  approach  the 
study  of  Hebrew  history. 

8  Truth  and  Fiction  from  my  Life,  Bk,  VII. 


CHAPTER  IV 
FORMS  OF  CULTURE 


THE  MEANING  OF  CULTURE 

By  THIS  TIME  WE  HAVE  ARRIVED  AT  THE  REALIZATION  THAT  MAN*S 
attempt  to  humanize  himself  means  more  than  an  extra 
urge  in  nature  or  an  unusual  effort  on  the  part  of  man's 
will.  Indeed  the  term  "  effort,"  so  suggestive  of  physical  energy, 
is  one  we  must  use  with  care.  It  may  perhaps  express  the  mode 
of  behavior  in  man's  body  as  it  exercises  the  will-to-live  or  elan 
vital;  it  is  not  so  expressive  of  man's  mental  behavior.  There,  in 
the  mind,  the  situation  is  different;  it  is  characterized  by  ideas  and 
feelings  and  motivated  by  attention  and  expression.  That  which 
is  operative  in  the  human  mind,  even  when  it  is  the  will,  is  some- 
thing fine  rather  than  something  strong.  It  is  by  the  force  of 
fineness,  then,  that  man  avails  himself  of  culture  in  order  to  build 
up  an  inner  life  and  thus  become  a  human  being  far  excellence. 
If  we  are  to  appreciate  the  influence  of  culture  in  human  history, 
we  must  analyze  the  idea  into  its  proper  forms  and  then  observe 
how  the  history  of  the  western  world  has  used  culture  to  elabo- 
rate various  types  of  national  existence  from  the  ancient  Athenian 
to  the  modern  American.  But  what  do  we  mean  by  the  term 
"culture?" 

The  term  culture  is  often  used  to  cover  the  whole  range  of 
man's  activities  when  these  are  viewed  psychologically.  The 
anthropologist  applies  the  term  to  the  work  of  primitive  man  in 
making  tools,  baskets,  boats,  and  the  like;  these  are  referred  to 
as  forms  of  material  culture.  The  popular  mind  thinks  of  cul- 
ture in  terms  of  polite  society,  where  it  connotes  good  manners 
and  grammatical  speech.  The  crude  person  who  lacks  these, 
even  though  he  be  far  superior  to  the  savage  with  his  "  culture," 
is  referred  to  as  "  uncultured,"  meaning  unrefined.  Just  as  the 
term  animal  is  used  to  cover  various  fauna  from  a  tiny  insect  to 
a  large  mammal,  so  the  term  culture  is  often  extended  to  the 
glimmerings  of  intelligence  in  primitive  men  and  the  graces  of 

75 


7g  FORMS  OF  CULTURE 

those  who  move  in  the  best  circles  of  urban  society.  It  will  be 
seen  at  once  that  we  cannot  make  headway  in  the  analysis  of  cul- 
tural types  among  modern  nations  if  we  apply  the  term  so  indis- 
criminately. 

CULTURE  AND  CIVILIZATION 

The  confusion  in  the  use  of  the  term  culture  is  that  which 
arises  when  it  is  closely  associated  with  civilization,  so  closely 
associated  as  to  be  identified  with  it.  The  term  when  it  is  used 
in  its  most  general  sense  is  often  made  to  include  both  culture 
and  civilization.  When,  at  the  beginning  of  the  World  War,  the 
Germans  used  the  term  Kultur,  they  meant  the  whole  socio- 
politico-scientific  activity  that  had  grown  up  among  them  since 
the  Franco-German  War.  If  they  had  been  thinking  of  the  Ger- 
many of  Goethe  and  Schiller,  they  would  have  used  the  word 
Eildung.  Culture  is  associated  with  civilization,  but  is  not  identi- 
fiable with  it.  The  Germans  were  cultured  a  century  before  the 
World  War,  but  did  not  have  their  XXth-century  civilization. 
We  have  civilization  in  America,  but  have  we  culture  also? 
Certainly  not  to  the  same  degree.  Suppose,  then,  we  cut  the 
Gordian  knot  that  entangles  this  pair  of  human  enterprises  and 
set  the  two  in  twain.  Civilization  is  the  outer  perfection,  culture 
the  inner  perfection  of  human  life.  They  accompany  each  other, 
but  do  not  always  keep  abreast. 

The  outer  perfection  of  life  is  something  we  recognize  definitely 
although  not  completely  in  urban  existence.  The  idea  of  civiliza- 
tion, as  we  have  seen,  suggests  a  city  and  this  in  turn  conveys  the 
idea  of  living  according  to  a  definite  pattern.  In  a  city,  the  streets 
are  arranged  geometrically,  the  houses  built  in  regular  rows, 
transportation  is  by  means  of  electricity,  and  the  forms  of  life 
generally  are  regulated.  It  is  still  possible  for  some  naturalistic 
philosopher  to  argue  that  the  perfection  of  life  is  just  as  well  if 
not  better  attained  in  connection  with  rural  existence,  but  from 
time  immemorial  it  has  been  a  tendency  among  men  to  express 
their  desire  for  perfection  by  the  building  of  cities  and  the  de- 
velopment of  regular  institutions.  The  obvious  difference  be- 
tween savagery  and  civilization  is  found  in  just  this — the  differ- 
ence between  the  planned  and  artificial  life  of  a  city  and  the  more 


CULTURE  AND  HUMANITY  77 

instinctive  form  of  existence  experienced  in  an  undeveloped 
community.  But  it  is  the  inward  perfection  of  life  that  concerns 
us  at  this  point. 

The  inward  development  and  perfection  of  human  life  is  the 
aim  of  culture.  It  is  not  that  culture  is  the  only  or  the  best  means 
of  enhancing  the  inner  life;  this  is  attempted  and  accomplished  by 
religion  and  morals.  But  the  method  employed  in  connection 
with  culture  is  by  no  means  the  same;  it  is  less  rigorous  and  per- 
haps less  meritorious.  It  is  the  means  commonly  observed  in  the 
arts  and  sciences.  In  a  word,  then,  culture  is  the  attempt  to 
perfect  life  intellectually  and  aesthetically.  When  these  tendencies 
are  turned  inward,  they  express  themselves  psychologically  as  cul- 
tured desires  —  the  desire  to  acquire  knowledge  for  its  own  sake 
and  cultivate  taste  because  of  its  intrinsic  value.  This  does  not 
mean  learning,  for  one  may  be  familiar  with  the  principle  of 
science  and  the  forms  of  art  without  being  cultured.  It  means 
appreciation  more  than  knowledge,  an  emotional  rather  than 
an  intellectual  condition,  and  a  personal  rather  than  a  general 
attitude  toward  the  True  and  Beautiful.  Though  one  have  all 
knowledge  and  understand  all  mysteries  and  have  not  culture, 
it  profiteth  him  nothing;  that  is,  as  far  as  one's  culture  is  con- 
cerned. 

CULTURE  AND  HUMANITY 

In  its  broader  or  more  public  character,  culture  connotes  "  Hu- 
manity." But  here,  as  before,  confusion  may  arise.  Humanity 
may  be  taken  scientifically  as  a  class-term  meant  to  include  all 
examples  of  mankind,  just  as  anirnality  may  be  used  to  signify 
all  forms  of  life  marked  by  locomotion.  Yet  such  an  error  is  not 
likely  to  arise;  more  likely  is  it  that  the  term  humanity  may  be 
taken  in  an  ethical  sense  to  signify  a  kindly  disposition  or  tend- 
ency toward  benevolence.  But,  of  course,  we  realize  that  this 
means  the  quality  of  being  humane.  When  the  term  humanity 
is  used  to  indicate  the  presence  of  culture,  the  term  is  to  be  taken 
in  ah  intellectual  and  aesthetical  sense.  Usually  we  find  it  in  the 
plural  and  refer  to  the  "  humanities  "  as*  forms  of  study  peculiar 
to  a  classic  system  of  education  and  not  altogether  conspicuous  in 
the  modern  college  curriculum,  where  the  more  obvious  impres- 


7g  FORMS  OF  CULTURE 

sion  is  that  of  the  vocational.  In  academic  circles,  we  strive  to 
maintain  a  distinction  between  "  liberal  arts  "  and  "  pure  sciences  " 
on  the  one  hand  and  studies  which  have  a  direct  bearing  upon  a 
profession  or  the  science  of  engineering.  These  pure  and  liberal 
studies  are  still  spoken  of  as  the  "  humanities,"  sometimes  they 
are  referred  to  adjectivally  as  "  cultural "  pursuits,  but  they  help  us 
here  in  forming  a  conception  of  humanistic  culture. 

The  term  culture,  however,  is  not  deep  enough  to  express  the 
idea  it  is  intended  to  convey;  yet  it  is  about  the  only  term  we  can 
use.  The  idea  we  wish  to  convey  involves  two  elements,  an  ac- 
tive and  a  passive  one.  We  may  indicate  these  directly  by  calling 
one  form  of  culture  "  genius  ";  the  other,  "  knowledge."  One  is 
culture  rampant,  the  other  culture  couchant;  one  shines  by  lumen 
illuminans,  the  other  by  lumen  illuminatum.  The  distinction  is 
one  that  we  can  feel  when  we  appreciate  the  difference  between 
the  creative  and  the  receptive;  one  that  we  can  apply  when  we 
distinguish  between  the  mood  of  the  artist  and  the  mind  of  the 
critic.  It  is  thus  that  we  have  ventured  to  introduce  the  term 
"  genius  "  to  express  the  idea  that  the  primary  form  of  culture 
is  something  spontaneous  and  creative  in  contrast  to  the  culture 
that  consists  iri  knowledge  and  appreciation.  The  idea  of  genius 
is  applied  usually  to  the  individual,  but  may  have  some  applica- 
tion by  accommodation  to  a  nation.  The  distinction  demands 
illustration. 

By  way  of  illustration,  we  may  suggest  that  the  Greek  mind  was 
creative  when  it  was  under  the  domination  of  the  god  Dionysus, 
the  deity  of  passion  and  creative  force;  it  proceeded  under  the 
auspices  of  Apollo  when  it  became  exact  and  reflective.  Or,  to 
take  the  Greek  mind  in  its  totality,  we  may  say  that  it  was  the 
direct  expression  of  genius-culture  in  contrast  with  the  Roman, 
which  was  more  studious,  critical.  To  cite  another  example  and 
install  another  contrast,  we  might  suggest  that  the  Italian  culture 
of  the  Renaissance  was  that  of  creative  genius  while  the  German 
culture,  which,  apart  from  its  Renaissance  artists,  came  much 
later,  was  critical  and  philosophical.  When  we  consider  Greek 
sculpture  and  Italian  painting,  we  realize  that  the  robust  tone  of 
culture  is  not  to  be  mistaken  for  an  echo  of  this  in  either  exact 
imitation  or  careful  criticism* 


CULTURE  CONTRASTS  79 

When  we  seek  this  distinction  between  primary  and  secondary 
culture,  we  observe  it  among  individuals  as  well  as  nations.  Was 
Shakespeare  a  cultured  man?  There  can  be  no  question  about 
his  genius,  but  in  comparison  with  Bacon  one  would  hardly  refer 
to  the  culture  of  Shakespeare,  who  chose  "  the  better  part."  In 
Shakespeare  we  find  a  minimum  of  learning  when  this  is  com- 
pared with  the  maximum  of  creative  power  the  poet  exhibited 
with  such  apparent  ease.  If  we  take  personal  examples  generally, 
we  may  venture  to  affirm  that  the  poet  and  the  novelist,  the 
painter  and  the  composer  whose  arts  reveal  creative  ability  may 
easily  have  less  culture  than  the  erudite  critics  who  pass  judgment 
upon  their  works.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  we  are  compelled  to 
extend  the  term  culture  to  include  the  constructive  and  uncon- 
scious work  performed  by  those  whose  culture  is  of  the  primary 
sort, 

CULTURE  CONTRASTS 

If  this  is  the  general  conception  of  culture,  how  can  the  idea 
be  determined  more  definitely?  The  determination  of  culture 
cannot  be  made  by  investigating  nature  with  the  hope  of  discover- 
ing any  sort  of  culture-instinct.  Culture  is  not  an  immediate 
feeling  like  the  sense  of  beauty  or  the  religious  feeling  of  awe. 
It  is  something  that  man  builds  up  by  means  of  ideas  within 
him  and  objects  outside  his  consciousness,  as  we  observe  in  the 
development  of  the  fine  arts.  Or  can  culture  be  identified  with 
something  within  man  himself  as  though  it  were  a  gift  like  me- 
chanical skill  or  language?  Culture  is  something  that  man  de- 
velops within  himself  as  the  expression  of  superabundance.  We 
observe  this  with  even  primitive  man,  who  used  his  hand  for 
decorative  as  well  as  skillful  work,  for  song  as  well  as  speech. 
Culture  comes  about  not  by  nature  alone  or  man  alone,  but  by  a 
contrast  between  the  two.  It  is  not  a  continuous  but  a  discon- 
tinuous idea;  it  means  the  opposition  of  man  to  nature  and  the 
assertion  of  an  independent  existence  on  man's  part.  Our  age  is 
not  conspicuous  for  its  culture-consciousness.  We  have  a  desire 
for  information,  a  lust  for  sophistication,  and  a  zeal  for  the  tech- 
nical, but  we  lack  aesthetic  appetite.  It  is  in  an  era  o£  noble 
artificiality  that  we  find  the  culture<onsciousness  —  the  age  of. 


gc  FORMS  OF  CULTURE 

Pericles,  of  Augustus,  the  Gothic  era,  the  Renaissance,  France  in 
the  XVIIth  century,  England  in  the  days  of  its  famous  queens, 
Elizabeth  and  Victoria,  and  America  before  the  Civil  War. 
When  a  generation  thinks  according  to  science  and  acts  according 
to  industry,  it  performs  great  exploits,  but  it  is  in  no  mood  to 
create  and  admire  the  beautiful.  For  culture  demands  that  man 
shall  react  upon  his  environment  and  transcend  his  immediate 
activities.  This  reaction,  this  elevation  produces  contrasts  and 
engenders  problems. 

The  contrasted  ideas  peculiar  to  culture  are  really  more  than 
ideas;  they  are  competitive  interests.  They  may  be  stated  in  the 
form  of  certain  junctures  which  have  confronted  the  human  race 
and  which  man  will  continue  to  meet  in  the  progress  of  his  hu- 
man life.  First,  there  is  the  general  contrast  between  Animality 
and  Humanity t  between  man  finding  himself  as  a  creature  and 
man  forming  himself  as  a  character.  Secondly,  this  general  con- 
trast of  situations  repeats  itself  in  the  form  of  competitive  inter- 
ests or  those  of  the  Immediate  and  the  Remote,  illustrated  in  the 
contrast  between  industry  and  art,  or  in  the  difference  between  a 
technical  school  and  a  college  of  liberal  arts.  Thirdly,  the  mo- 
tivation that  follows  from  this  disjunction  appears  in  the  opposed 
forces  of  Conquest  and  Contemplation,  both  of  which  are  rather 
extravagant  terms  used  to  indicate  the  difference  between  the 
work  of  the  will  and  the  procedure  of  the  intellect.  Finally,  in 
the  fourth  place,  the  psychological  state  of  affairs  is  such  as  to 
produce  a  contrast  between  Outer  Existence  and  Inner  Life, 
which  expressions  bear  their  own  weight  fairly  well. 

ANIMALITY  ANI>  HUMANITY 

The  contrast  between  Animality  and  Humanity  is  too  broad  to 
signify  the  special  nature  of  the  culture-problem,  but  must  be  laid 
down  as  basic.  It  is  a  contrast  which  is  felt  in  both  culture  and 
civilization,  in  art  and  science,  in  philosophy  and  religion,  all  of 
which  human  enterprises  place  the  human  mind  in  juxtaposition 
to  the  world.  Art  attempts  to  perfect  certain  forms  of  nature. 
Science  seeks  to  reduce  things  and  events  to  natural  laws  with 
measurable  forms.  Philosophy  desires  to  substitute  ideas  or  cate- 


ANIMALITY  AND  HUMANITY  8l 

gories  or  relations  for  the  things  o£  this  world,  while  religion 
tends  to  seek  another  world  altogether.  Man  endeavors  to  move 
forward  into  the  world  of  enlightenment,  but  his  steps  are  dogged 
by  the  interests  of  animality.  He  would  seek  the  True,  the  Good, 
and  the  Beautiful,  but  he  cannot  keep  his  mind  of?  food,  clothing, 
and  shelter.  Animal  interests  like  the  poor  are  ever  with  us. 

The  inherent  animality  of  man,  over  which  culture  seeks  to 
triumph,  shows  itself  unmistakably  in  the  incessant  tendency  to 
seek  food.  It  may  be  true  that  "  where  there  is  no  vision  the 
people  perish,"  but  it  is  just  as  obvious  that  bread  is  the  staff  of 
life.  It  may  be  noble  to  declare  that  "  philosophy  cannot  bake 
bread,  but  it  can  give  us  God,  freedom,  and  immortality,"  but 
while  we  are  pursuing  these  ideals  we  must  be  fed.  There  is  at 
least  an  apparent  conflict  between  the  animality  and  the  humanity 
of  man,  so  that  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  the  inner  man  can  be 
renewed  day  by  day  when  the  outer  man  perishes.  Shall  we  de- 
cide in  favor  of  man  as  the  animal  that  seeks  food  or  man  as  the 
spirit  that  seeks  culture?  Of  course,  we  must  vote  for  both  these 
candidates  and  escape  from  the  paradox  as  best  we  can.  The 
conflict  has  arisen  again  and  again  in  the  life  of  civilized  man;  it 
comes  up  today  in  the  competition  between  the  interests  of  com- 
merce and  culture.  How  can  we  adjust  their  respective  claims? 

We  can  come  to  some  sort  of  tentative  conclusion  by  observing, 
as  we  did  at  the  outset  when  we  considered  The  Evolution  of 
Man,  that  the  ultimate  purpose  of  food  is  to  nourish  the  brain 
and  nervous  system.  It  is  as  though  nature,  realizing  that  the 
animal's  quest  of  food  depended  upon  the  ability  of  its  sensa- 
tions to  direct  its  movements,  had  resolved  to  feed  that  nervous 
system  at  all  costs.  Hence,  in  the  attempt  to  supply  the  animal 
with  a  senso-motor  organ  necessary  in  seeking  sustenance,  nature 
has  overdone  the  matter,  as  seems  to  be  the  case  with  the  human 
species.  For  nature  has  given  man  a  brain  that  he  can  use  in 
still  other  ways  than  those  of  food-getting.  He  can  use  the  brain 
as  brain,  as  an  organ  of  cognition  generally. 

Man  does  this  in  connection  with  the  operations  of  his  hands 
in  manufacture  of  various  sorts,  from  stone  implements  to  gi- 
gantic machines.  But  in  so  doing  he  keeps  releasing  his  brain, 
which  builds  better  than  it  knows.  The  act  begets  the  idea,  then 


g2  FORMS  OF  CULTURE 

the  idea  outgrows  the  act;  the  result  is  free  intellection  or  culture. 
When  mankind  is  placed  in  the  tropical  regions  where  the  quest 
for  food  is  no  real  problem  or  when  it  is  located  in  Arctic  areas 
where  it  is  the  main  question,  there  is  no  need,  there  is  no  oppor- 
tunity for  any  independent  thought  process.  It  is  when  mankind 
finds  itself  in  a  temperate  zone,  where  food-getting  by  agriculture 
and  hunting  is  neither  too  easy  nor  too  difficult,  that  its  mental 
powers  are  called  forth  to  the  proper  degree,  for  it  is  in  the  tem- 
perate areas  that  we  find  the  highest  types  of  both  civilization 
and  culture.  Animality  comes  to  an  understanding  with  hu- 
manity and  the  creature  of  nature  realizes  itself  as  a  spiritual 

being. 

At  the  present  time,  when  the  needs  of  life  are  supplied  by 
industry  and  distributed  commercially,  the  same  problem  of  hu- 
manity and  animality  comes  up  in  the  form  of  an  antinomy 
between  culture  and  commerce.  Our  age  is  a  commercial  not  a 
cultural  one,  and  it  is  in  this  country  that  excess  of  the  practical 
over  the  intellectual  is  most  flagrant.  But  at  last,  after  such  tre- 
mendous success  in  the  mechanical  production  of  commodities, 
it  is  coming  to  light  that  the  modern  man  has  not  been  so  success- 
ful in  the  distribution  of  these  benefits.  He  has  developed  mass- 
production  with  class-  but  not  mass-distribution  in  the  economic 
form  of  buying  power.  He  is  now  trying  to  distribute  buying 
power,  or  wealth,  in  order  that  the  population  generally  may 
share  in  the  inherent  prosperity  of  the  industrial  age.  Just  where 
is  the  need  of  proper  distribution  felt? 

Not  altogether  in  the  direction  of  things  that  money  will  buy, 
but  along  the  line  of  the  advantages  that  wealth  is  Calculated  to 
afford.  That  is,  freedom  from  anxiety  about  food,  a  due  amount 
of  leisure,  and  the  spiritual  advantages  which  this  liberty  and 
leisure  involve.  This  means  culture.  It  means  the  opportunity 
of  the  human  brain  to  attend  to  what  interests  it  rather  than  to 
feel  itself  riveted  to  work.  It  means  the  active  attention  of  the 
mind  in  place  of  the  kind  of  attention  that  is  arrested  by  the 
incessant  needs  of  life.  By  means  of  machinery,  man  has  de- 
livered himself  from  that  animalistic  condition  according  to 
which  he  must  use  his  brain  in  the  pursuit  of  nothing  but  food 
and  the  essentials  of  life  generally.  For  man  has  manufactured 


THE  IMMEDIATE  AND  THE  REMOTE         83 

a  mannikin  capable  of  acting,  as  it  were,  in  a  senso-motor  ca- 
pacity to  do  his  work  for  him.  It  is  thus  that  in  meeting  the 
demands  of  animality,  as  these  appear  in  a  civilized  community, 
man  made  it  possible  for  his  brain  to  detach  itself  from  its  work 
and  serve  the  needs  of  the  spirit.  But  it  will  require  a  proper 
ethical  and  educational  system  if  this  advantage  is  to  be  realized 
in  a  practical  way  and  on  a  large  scale. 

THE  IMMEDIATE  AND  THE  REMOTE 

The  disjunction  between  the  Immediate  and  the  Remote  does 
not  show  itself  in  any  physical  way,  but  in  a  psychological  form; 
it  is  a  matter  of  interest  or  what  appeals  to  man  as  worth  culti- 
vating. Wealth  and  the  business  which  is  supposed  to  produce 
it  have  immediate  interest  for  mankind  today.  Wisdom  and  the 
study  that  engenders  it  is  a  matter  of  interest  or  that  which  is 
worth  striving  after,  but  the  interest  involved  is  remote  from  the 
concerns  and  activities  of  everyday  life.  This  was  not  always  the 
case.  The  Greeks  were  not  money-mad,  but  had  a  kind  of  mania 
for  knowledge,  which  showed  itself  in  the  age  of  the  Sophists 
and  assumed  a  more  worthy  form  after  Socrates  appeared.  The 
Elizabethan  period  does  not  stand  out  in  history  as  a  time  when 
men  were  given  up  to  gain;  they  were  more  bent  upon  entertain* 
ment,  so  that  the  era  may  be  symbolized  by  a  stage  rather  than 
a  store.  In  our  own  country,  the  period  before  the  Civil  War  and 
even  the  one  after  it  revealed  the  American  as  a  person  who 
sought  comfort,  some  luxury,  and  a  graceful  way  of  living.  The 
remote  interests  of  knowledge  and  good  taste  have  made  appeal 
pathetically  comparable  to  the  present  demand  for  an  immediate 
value  like  money  and  what  money  can  buy. 

Our  intellectual  progress  during  the  last  hundred  years  has 
been  guided  by  science,  which  itself  has  proceeded  along  the 
lines  of  fhysicd  energy  and  organic  evolution.  The  effect  of 
the  evolutionary  theory  has.  been  to  re-relate  us  to  the  earth  and 
thus  emphasize  immediacy  of  interest,  although  in  a  general  way 
only.  The  principle  of  energy  in  the  form  of  applied  science  has 
stressed  the  immediate  interests  in  the  definite  forms  of  labor- 
saving  machines,  time-saving  devices,  and  creature-comforts  gear 


84  FORMS  OF  CULTURE 

erally.  Science  has  not  enhanced  virtue,  improved  taste,  or  deep- 
ened faith,  so  that,  as  generally  received,  it  has  not  contributed  to 
man's  remote  interests.  Science  as  ordinarily  understood  means 
average  cognition  adaptable  to  education  and  applicable  to  every- 
day life. 

However,  the  range  of  science  is  so  vast  and  its  points  of  pene- 
tration so  many  that  the  remote  interests  of  mankind  have  not 
been  altogether  neglected.  The  interests  of  the  remote  appear 
in  the  extremes  of  the  macroscopic  and  microscopic,  whereby  the 
science  of  the  present  century  has  all  but  calculated  the  size  of 
space  and  the  electronic  nature  of  the  atom.  In  addition  to  these 
remote  considerations,  which  redeem  science  from  the  charge  of 
utilitarianism,  the  contemporary  study  of  the  world  is  revealing 
the  essential  nature  of  space  and  time  as  well  as  the  intimate  re- 
lationship between  them.  The  result  has  been  to  engender  a  new 
idea  of  the  universe.  This  is  something  that  cannot  be  claimed 
by  the  forces  of  immediacy,  by  practical  men,  but  is  that  which 
belongs  by  right  on  the  side  of  the  remote,  where  it  is  appreciated 
by  idealists. 

Apart  from  its  definite  connection  with  science,  our  modern 
life  reveals  the  strident  conflict  of  minor  and  major  interests,  or 
concern  for  the  immediate  and  the  remote.  We  feel  the  differ- 
ence between  commerce  and  culture,  life's  needs  and  life's  ideals, 
efficiency  and  enlightenment.  The  student  is  made  to  feel  it 
when  he  is  forced  to  choose  between  an  ancient  language  and  a 
modern  tongue,  business  English  and  romantic  poetry,  accounting 
and  higher  mathematics.  The  general  reader  appreciates  it,  how- 
ever vaguely,  when  he  inclines  toward  a  book  or  set  of  books  that 
are  supposed  to  equip  him  for  his  work  and  increase  his  income 
and  turns  away  from  general  literature.  The  claims  of  the  re- 
mote are  weak  in  comparison  with  the  demands  of  the  immedi- 
ate, as  these  are  put  forth  by  technicalism  and  everyday  life. 

CONQUEST  AND  CONTEMPLATION 

The  same  bifurcation  of  man's  very  being  appears  again  in  the 
contrast  between  Conquest  and  Contemplation,  or  the  claims  as- 
serted by  will  and  intellect,  not  merely  a  tendency  to  fight  or  to 


CONQUEST  AND  CONTEMPLATION  85 

dream.  It  is  of  course  impossible  to  consider  man  as  merely  a 
creature  of  action  on  the  one  hand  or  a  being  who  thinks  on  the 
other;  as  kgrn&jaber  or  homa-softens.  The  human  brain  could 
tolerate  no  such  exclusive  distinction.  But  it  is  possible  to  adjust 
the  will  of  conquest  to  the  intellect  of  contemplation  in  such  a 
way  as  to  place  one  or  the  other  in  a  superior  position.  This  is 
precisely  what  man  has  done  in  his  philosophy  of  life.  When 
the  principle  of  culture  was  paramount,  man  subordinated  the 
will  to  the  intellect;  when  culture  and  intellectual  procedure 
generally  seemed  unsatisfactory,  man  sought  to  reverse  the  mental 
order  and  make  the  will  superior.  This  was  expressed  by  Duns 
Scotus  at  the  close  of  the  Scholastic  period  when  that  early  mod- 
ern created  the  maxim,  voluntas  superior  est  intellectu.  Now 
this  reference  to  Scholasticism  is  made  chiefly  for  the  sake  of  the 
phrase  just  cited.  The  culture-issue,  as  far  as  this  involves  the 
active  will  or  the  contemplative  intellect,  is  found  elsewhere;  it 
appears  massively  and  vividly  in  the  contrast  between  the  ancient 
and  the  modern  mind  or,  say,  the  Athenian  and  the  American. 

The  spokesman  for  ancient  order  was  Aristotle.  He  appeared 
well  toward  the  close  of  ancient  philosophy,  whose  meaning  he 
summed  up  and  systematized.  His  thought  in  its  range  and 
variety  was  such  that  it  appealed  to  periods  wholly  different  from 
the  one  in  which  he' lived,  and  just  as  different  from  each  other 
as  Scholasticism  and  contemporary  thought.  Aristotle  did  not 
discuss  the  question  of  culture  as  such,  but  the  essence  of  the  idea 
was  not  wanting  in  his  Poetics  and  Ethics,  wherein  he  makes 
significant  reference  to  the  function  of  art  and  the  nature  of 
happiness. 

In  his  discussion  of  eudaemonism,  Aristotle,  who  proceeded 
along  the  general  line  of  "  energy,"  concludes  that  it  is  jJ^ypo$ses- 
sion  of  the.  di^sicgji  object  rather  than  the  pursuit  of  it  that  yields 
hagpiaess.  This  leads  him  to  stress  the  importance  of  the  pos- 
sessing intellect  rather  than  the  pursuing  will  in  the  realization 
of  life's  aim.  This  is  done  by  following  the  idea  of  "  energy  "  to 
its  ultimate  conclusion.  Assuming  that  happiness  is  a  form  of 
energy,  Aristotle  modifies  it  by  adding  the  idea  that  such  energy 
must  be  in  moderation,  and  then  concludes  that  the  highest  energy 
is  that  of  intellect.  Energy  remains,  but  it  is  so  moderated  and 


3(5  FORMS  OF  CULTURE 

purified  as  to  "  lose  the  name  of  action."  "  Now  i£  from  a  living 
being,"  says  he,  "  you  take  away  action,  what  remains  but  con- 
templation? So  then  the  energy  of  the  gods,  eminent  in  blessed- 
ness, will  be  one  apt  for  contemplative  speculation;  and  of  all 
human  energies  that  will  have  the  greatest  capacity  for  happiness 
which  is  nearest  akin  to  this,"  * 

.The  same  philosophical  preference  for  intellect  over  will  was 
expressed  by  Bacon.  Theoretically  this  modern  propagandist  of 
science  was  opposed  to  Aristotle,  whom  in  all  probability  he  did 
not  appreciate  or  even  understand,  but  practically  he  was  in 
agreement  with  him,  and  exalts  his  intellectualism  above  the 
militarism  of  Alexander  the  Great.  Like  Aristotle,  Bacon  con- 
tends in  favor  of  the  contemplative  life  on  the  ground  that  it  is 
more  satisfactory;  the  intellect  ministers  unto  suavisstma  vita. 
Toward  the  close  of  his  career,  BacQn  changed  from  the  idea  that 
"  knowledge  is  pleasure "  to  "  knowledge  is  power,"  but  his 
earlier  work,  The  Advancement  of  Learning  (1605),  advances 
the  cause  of  gultur^by  the  way  it  combines  learning  withjiap- 
piness. 

In  presenting  the  claims  of  knowledge,  Bacon  contends  for  the 
superiority  of  what  he  calls  "  the  work  of  contemplation."  His 
preference  for  this  that  really  is  culture  is  based  upon  historical 
evidence  rather  than  psychological  analysis'  or  logical  reasoning. 
The  testimony  is  first  sacred,  then  secular.  As  Aristotle  had  re- 
ferred so  naively  to  the  happiness  of  the  contemplative  gods  of 
the  Greeks,  so  Bacon  appeals  to  the  Jehovah  of  the  Hebrews  and 
his  divine  attitude  toward  the  Sabbath.  "  The  seventh  day  in 
which  God  rested  and  contemplated  his  own  works  was  blessed 
above  all  the  days  wherein  he  did  effect  and  accomplish  them." 
The  similarity  between  pagan  and  Christian  theologies  is  sugges- 
tive, but  far  more  striking  is  the  psychological  parallel  between 
two  modes  of  reasoning  in  which  the  life  of  contemplation,  or 
culture,  is  deemed  more  satisfactory  than  the  life  of  conquest  to 
even  divine  beings. 

Bacon  proceeds  from  the  contemplative  attitude  of  the  Deity 
toward  Creation  to  the  life-ideal  implanted  in  God's  creatures. 
The  vocation  of  Adam  consisted  in  giving  names  to  the  beasts 

1  Ethics  Bk.  X,  Ch.  VI. 


OUTER  EXISTENCE  AND  INNER  LIFE         87 

of  the  field  and  birds  of  the  air  as  God  brought  them  unto  man. 
The  hard  labor  of  life,  which  contrasts  painfully  with  this  work 
of  contemplation,  came  only  after  man's  expulsion  from  Eden. 
Bacon  then  asserts  that  the  offering  of  Abel  was  more  acceptable 
than  that  of  Cain  since  the  life  of  a  shepherd  was  naturally  more 
contemplative  than  that  of  a  husbandman.  In  like  manner, 
Moses,  a  man  of  action,  was  famous  for  Egyptian  learning;  Job, 
for  natural  philosophy;  and  Solomon,  for  wisdom.  On  the  secu- 
lar side  of  history,  continues  Bacon,  mythology  shows  how  su- 
perior were  the  inventors  of  new  arts  and  sciences  over  mere 
rulers  and  lawgivers;  the  former  were  deemed  gods,  the  latter 
only  demi-gods.  In  human  history,  men  of  thought  are  placed 
higher  than  men  of  action;  Socrates  above  Xenophon,  Aristotle 
over  Alexander,  and  Cicero  before  Caesar. 

It  is  needless  to  point  out  that  the  development  of  modern 
thought  after  the  death  of  Bacon  was  such  as  to  forget  the  naive 
idealism  expressed  in  The  Advancement  of  Learning  and 
incline  toward  the  more  practical,  more  potent  ideas  of  the 
Novum  Organum  (1620).  The  development  of  physical  science 
as  this  culminated  in  Newtonian  mechanics  was  so  impressive 
that  the  modern  mind  could  hardly  think  of  nature  as  something 
to  be  contemplated  for  the  sake  of  enjoyment.  No,  nature 
seemed  the  form  of  a  vast  machine  that  was  to  be  analyzed  and 
then  set  to  work  in  behalf  of  the  beholder.  It  is  no  wonder  that 
the  idea  of  culture  came  up  for  criticism. 

OUTER  EXISTENCE  AND  INNER  LIFE 

The  fourth  and  final  contrast  peculiar  to  the  culture-problem 
follows  from  the  other  three.  When  the  man  of  culture  sets  his 
humanity  in  opposition  to  nature,  pursues  remote  rather  than 
immediate  interests,  and  insists  on  the  superiority  of  contempla- 
tion over  all  forms  of  conquest,  he  is  only  emphasizing  the  im- 
portance of  his  Inner  Life  in  contrast  with  his  Outer  Existence. 
Man's  inner  life  is  made  up  of  sensations,  feelings,  ideas,  and  that 
general  mass  of  consciousness  that  each  one  comes  to  recognize 
as  himself.  His  outer  existence  consists  of  the  objects  that  engage 
his  attention  and  the  activities  that  go  forth  toward  them.  Both 


gg  FORMS  OF  CULTURE 

these  objects  and  the  activities  they  enlist  may  be  called  the 
"  things  to  be  done."  What  chance  has  the  inner  life  of  feelings 
with  the  outer  existence  of  facts? 

The  exponent  of  culture  in  his  defense  of  the  inner  life  has 
not  been  tempted  to  resort  to  the  extremes  of  subjective  idealism 
according  to  which  all  outer  existence  is  just  so  much  inner  life 
in  the  sense  that  reality  is  mental,  things  ideas,  and  objects  only 
percepts.  In  the  case  of  German  Romanticism,  as  also  with 
French  Symbolism,  something  like  this  was  done,  and  that  quite 
largely  upon  the  basis  of  Kant's  Transcendental  Idealism  which 
made  the  human  understanding  "  the  lawgiver  of  all  nature." 
But  Kant  was  not  working  in  behalf  of  aesthetic  culture,  nor  was 
the  aestheticism  of  these  hectic  movements  at  all  well  grounded  in 
transcendental  logic.  Hence  it  may  be  concluded  that  the  cul- 
tural contention  in  favor  of  the  inner  life  is  not  to  be  made  upon 
the  basis  of  speculative  idealism.  What  the  proponent  of  culture 
does  is  what  Aristode  and  Bacon  did  before  him;  he  resorts  to 
the  principle  of  value  and  insists  that  the  worth  of  life  consists  in 
an  inward  satisfaction  rather  than  any  outward  acquisition.  With 
Aristotle  and  Bacon,  this  inward  satisfaction,  this  human  value 
was  expressed  simply  and  sincerely  in  the  form  of  happiness. 

There  is  an  inner  life  for  man  just  as  there  is  an  outer  exist- 
ence. There  can  be  no  question  about  the  facts  in  these  contrasted 
cases,  no  possibility  of  having  psychology  absorb  physics  or  phys- 
ics engulf  psychology.  The  only  question,  where  human  culture 
is  concerned,  is  that  of  values;  which  sort  of  existence,  inner  or 
outer,  is  calculated  to  yield  true  and  lasting  satisfaction  to  an 
individual  or  a  nation?  How  can  this  question  be  answered? 
Certainly  not  by  experimenting  upon  so  many  individuals  as- 
sembled in  a  psychological  laboratory  or  by  an  extensive  question- 
naire. For  it  is  not  what  this  or  that  individual  thinks  of  his  life 
or  what  a  majority  of  such  individuals  decide  by  vote  as  to  the 
true  issue  of  life,  but  what  the  nature  of  life  itself  reveals.  Science, 
in  dealing  with  the  conditions  of  life  as  a  biological  function,  does 
not  ask  various  individuals  whether  they  think  that  their  adapta- 
tion to  their  environment  is  an  important  factor  in  their  individ- 
ual existence  as  organisms.  Science  asserts  that  such  adaptation 
is  important. 


OPPONENTS  OF  CULTURE  g9 

That  parallel  need  not  be  pressed  to  any  great  extent  before  it 
reveals  the  fact  that  human  happiness,  like  human  existence,  in- 
volves a  form  of  adaptation  —  the  adaptation  of  inner  life  to 
outer  existence.  The  nature  of  such  adaptation  is  culture;  the 
result  is  happiness;  the  method  of  reasoning  is  eudaemonistic, 
just  as  it  was  with  Aristotle  and  Bacon.  The  whole  situation, 
which  may  have  become  complicated  in  all  that  has  gone  before, 
resolves  itself  into  the  simple  question,  What  is  happiness? 
When  are  individuals  and  nations  happy?  This  question  is  not 
to  be  answered  in  a  miscellaneous  manner  as  though  happiness 
consisted  in  some  one  of  a  large  variety  of  things —  wealth,  social 
position,  success  in  business,  travel,  political  office,  ancestry,  race, 
and  the  like.  The  question  of  happiness,  which  involves  that  of 
culture,  is  to  be  solved  by  an  appeal  to  the  major  functions  of  the 
human  mind,  intellect  and  will.  Is  man  happy  in  his  thoughts 
or  his  actions,  in  the  sensory  or  motor  portion  of  his  brain,  if  one 
cares  to  reduce  such  an  august  question  to  the  common  denomi- 
nator of  naturalism?  The  exponents  of  culture,  convinced  that 
happiness  is  the  criterion  of  culture,  have  had  no  doubts  about  its 
ability  to  produce  that  happiness;  their  case  is  therefore  closed. 
In  a  certain  sense,  this  sort  of  argument  might  be  likened  to  the 
Method  of  Agreement  in  inductive  logic  even  when  there  has 
been  no  genuine  induction.  This,  of  course,  suggests  the  Method 
of  Difference,  or  the  negative  side  of  the  argument.  This,  how- 
ever, introduces  an  independent  line  of  thought,  although  one 
that  corroborates  the  foregoing  theory  of  culture. 

OPPONENTS  OF  CULTURE 

The  opponents  of  culture  are  in  agreement  with  its  exponents 
as  far  as  the  criterion  is  concerned.  Both  place  their  merits  upon 
human  happiness.  The  difference  between  them  lies  solely  in 
this  —  that  the  proponent  of  culture  says  "culture  makes  men 
happy,"  while  his  opponent  denies  this  by  saying  "  culture  does 
not  make  men  happy."  It  was  Rousseau  who  inaugurated  the 
attack  upon  culture,  although  it  was  not  he  who  set  up  activity  as 
the  rival  of  thought  in  the  heart  of  man.  The  pursuit  of  culture 
had  been  carried  on  aristocratically  by  the  ancients,  in  which 


m  FORMS  OF  CULTURE 

yu 

spirit  it  was  resumed  during  the  Renaissance.  By  the  time  Rous- 
seau appeared  (1712-1778),  this  aristocracy  had  taken  on  a  form 
both  artificial  and  tyrannical.  Furthermore,  Europe,  especially 
England  and  France,  had  been  saturated  with  rationalism,  so 
that  an  emotional  and  revolutionary  thinker  like  Rousseau  was 
bound  to  oppose  the  intellectualism  that  seemed  to  have  engen- 
dered these  ills. 

Rousseau's  quarrel  with  culture,  expressed  originally  in  the 
Dijon  prize  essay  on  The  Influence  of  the  Sciences  and  Arts 
(1750),  had  to  do  with  the  baneful  influence  of  culture  upon  the 
nature  of  man.  According  to  Rousseau,  man  came  from  the 
hands  of  nature  perfect  and  happy  and  it  was  only  because  he 
had  been  led  to  indulge  in  thought  that  he  had  degenerated. 
This  degeneration  reveals  itself  in  the  misery  which  man  now 
experiences  and  indicates  that  the  separation  of  animality  and  hu- 
manity, the  first  step  in  culture,  was  a  mistake.  Hence  the  fa- 
mous maxim,  "Let  us  return  to  nature!"  This  anti-cultural 
point  of  view  was  resumed  by  Rousseau  in  1753,  when  he  wrote 
a  discourse  The  Source  and  Ground  of  Inequality  among  Men, 
claiming  that  the  advance  beyond  nature  had  been  by  unequal 
steps  because  some  men  were  more  cultured  than  others.  With 
democratic  enthusiasm  does  he  argue  against  the  aristocratic 
tendency  of  culture  only  to  conclude  that  no  culture  at  all  is 
better  than  that  which  renders  men  unequal,  an  argument  which 
he  applies  to  civilization  also. 

There  is  more  semblance  of  argument  in  the  ideals  of  Voltaire 
and  Goethe,  who  like  Rousseau  were  themselves  both  men  of  the 
very  highest  culture.  What  one  finds  in  their  anti-culture  is  the 
sharp  disjunction  between  the  ideals  of  remote  contemplation 
and  immediate  conquest.  Voltaire  expresses  his  disdain  for  the 
intellect  and  corresponding  enthusiasm  for  the  will  in  the  well- 
known  story  of  Candide.  The  tone  of  the  story  is  a  melancholy 
one,  produced  by  the  Lisbon  earthquake  of  1755;  the  idea  is  to 
discover  whether  Leibnitz  was  correct  in  assuming  that  this  is 
the  best  world  possible;  and  the  conclusion  is  that  we  must  solve 
the  riddle  of  the  universe  by  action  rather  than  thought.  Long 
before  Voltaire,  Montaigne  had  taken  a  similar  point  of  view, 
basing  his  practical  ideal,  that  the  highest  moment  in  man's  life 


OPPONENTS  OF  CULTURE  gi 

is  when  he  is  found  in  his  garden  planting  cabbages,  upon  the 
theoretical  assumption  that  man  was  born  in  order  that  he  might 
act.  Voltaire  expresses  this  by  asserting  that  man  was  placed  in 
the  Garden  of  Eden  that  he  might  work,  which  is  not  in  accord- 
ance with  the  actual  story,  and  that,  since  thought  can  only  make 
us  miserable,  we  should  "  cultivate  our  garden  "  in  order  to  be 
happy. 

Goethe's  contribution  to  this  anti-cultural  chapter  in  human 
history  is  expressed  in  the  inclusive  and  extensive  story  of  Faust. 
Previous  to  the  completion  of  this  life-long  poem,  Goethe  had 
set  intellect  and  will  in  painful  juxtaposition  in  the  drama  of 
Torquato  Tasso  (1789).  In  this  drama  of  genius,  Tasso  with  the 
manuscript  of  Jerusalem  Delivered  in  his  hands  is  placed  in  con- 
trast with  Antonio,  who  carries  a  portfolio  significant  of  the  ac- 
tive life.  The  contrast  between  the  two  characters  is  broadened 
and  deepened  in  such  a  way  as  to  develop  the  difference  be- 
tween the  man  of  thought  and  the  man  of  action  expressed  in  the 
memorable  lines,  "  Talent  is  formed  in  solitude,  character  in  the 
stream  of  the  world."  But  it  is  indicated  that  practical  character 
is  more  significant  and  satisfactory  than  private  talent.  At  the 
conclusion  of  Faust  the  everlastingly  happy  moment  comes  when 
the  intellectual  hero  enjoys  the  satisfaction  of  draining  a  swamp 
in  order  to  make  a  near-by  town  sanitary.  It  is  then  that  Faust 
finds  the  moment  he  would  perpetuate  and  thus  exclaims,  "  O, 
Augenblic\!  verweile  dock,  du  bist  so  scfidn"  Now,  it  can  hardly 
be  concealed  that  these  arguments  against  the  contemplative  life 
of  culture  might  have  been  more  impressive  if  they  had  devised 
for  the  misguided  homo  sapiens  some  more  worthy  vocation  than 
that  of  planting  cabbages,  cultivating  a  garden,  and  draining  a 
swamp.  There  are  serious  arguments  against  culture  and  con- 
tentions in  favor  of  the  active  life,  but  these  are  barely  implied  by 
Rousseau,  Voltaire,  and  Goethe. 

The  idea  of  happiness  is  so  bound  up  in  the  question  of  culture 
that  it  would  be  unwise  to  detach  it  and  give  it  independent  dis- 
cussion. But  there  are  two  other  ideas  that  stand  in  less  intimate 
relation  to  culture—- work,  which  is  the  contrary  of  culture,  and 
democracy  as  this  challenges  culture  in  its  original  form  of  aris- 
tocracy. We  live  in  an  industrial  democracy,  are  acquainted  with 


g2  FORMS  OF  CULTURE 

its  principles,  and  are  inclined  to  accept  its  values.  How  can  we 
sympathize  with  any  land  or  people  or  age  which  exalted  cul- 
tural aristocracy?  If  we  are  to  continue  our  human  culture,  we 
must  adjust  it  to  the  problem  of  work  and  the  populace. 

CULTURE  AND  WORK 

First,  as  to  the  problem  of  life  as  work  and  life  as  thought,  the 
original  contrast  between  conquest  and  contemplation;  how  can 
there  be  culture  in  an  age  of  industry?  Aristotle  and  Bacon  saw 
in  what  we  call  "  work  "  the  energy  or  work  of  contemplation. 
Voltaire  and  Goethe  came  to  feel,  if  we  may  believe  their  jaunty 
words,  that  the  procedure  of  the  intellect  is  nothing  in  compari- 
son with  the  performance  of  the  will.  Hence  they  spoke  figura- 
tively of  cultivating  the  garden  and  draining  the  swamp  as  forms 
of  activity  most  worthy  of  man  and  just  as  satisfactory  to  him. 
Now,  the  idea  of  work  must  be  analyzed  in  order  to  determine 
whether  it  is  able  to  oust  culture  from  its  time-honored  place.  If 
men  of  culture  see  value  in  the  idea  of  work,  it  may  turn  out  that 
work  and  culture  are  not  contradictory,  but  complementary. 

A  beginning  or  perhaps  the  beginning  of  man's  life  as  such  was 
made  by  means  of  work  in  the  form  of  tool-making.  According 
to  Bergson,  mechanical  invention  has  ever  been  the  essential  fea- 
ture of  human  intelligence;  mechanisms  of  some  sort  mark  the 
course  of  history,  while  at  the  present  time  our  social  life  revolves 
about  the  manufacture  and  use  of  artificial  instruments.  "In- 
telligence," says  Bergson,  "considered  in  what  seems  to  be  its 
original  feature,  is  the  faculty  of  manufacturing  artificial  objects, 
especially  tools  to  make  tools,  and  of  indefinitely  varying  the 
manufacture." 2  Now,  inasmuch  as  culture,  in  distinction  from 
the  pure  cognition  as  such  peculiar  to  speculative  metaphysics  and 
mathematics,  is  a  more  or  less  concrete  and  active  form  of  intel- 
lectual procedure,  this  practical  conception  of  intelligence  can 
prove  only  acceptable. 

By  adopting,  if  in  only  a  provisional  way,  the  idea  that  human 
intelligence  is  akin  to  human  activity,  the  exponent  of  culture  has 
made  overtures  to  those  who  insist  that  life  means  work.  On  the 

2  Creative  Evohttion,  tr.  Mitchell,  p.  139. 


CULTURE  AND  WORK  ^ 

other  hand,  if  such  work  involves  intelligence,  it  is  bound  to  con- 
tain the  essence  of  culture.  Culture  itself,  being  no  theoretical 
thing,  involves  a  certain  praxis  as  this  appears  in  the  fine  arts, 
especially  those  of  architecture,  sculpture,  and  painting.  If  one 
is  inclined  to  stress  the  force  of  etymology,  one  can  find  a  certain 
kind  of  "  making  "  with  words  in  the  energy  of  the  poet,  who, 
according  to  the  Greek  word  poiein,  is  a  maker,  while  his  poem, 
or  poiema,  is  a  kind  of  thing  made.  But  this  twist  of  language 
can  amount  to  only  a  suggestion  of  the  actual  work  accomplished 
in  the  spatial  arts.  If,  then,  we  may  assume  that  there  is  more 
likeness  than  difference  between  culture  and  work,  we  may  pro- 
ceed to  the  case  of  the  individual  worker.  In  an  ideal  order,  the 
individual  gets  culture  out  of  life  in  the  same  proportion  that  he 
puts  work  into  the  world.  When  he  acts  upon  the  external  world 
by  means  of  work,  what  he  does  reacts  upon  him,  so  that  as  he 
changes  the  face  of  nature  he  changes  the  form  of  his  own  mind. 
The  work  involves  both  an  object  and  a  subject;  the  results  are 
both  economic  and  educational.  The  process  by  means  of  which 
this  double  result  is  produced  can  be  expressed  in  a  traditional 
form  by  saying  that  one  learns  to  know  by  doing.  But  doubtless 
this  process  has  more  to  do  with  education  than  with  culture, 
which  requires  leisure,  or  time  which  can  be  devoted  to  private 
pursuits. 

At  the  present  time,  the  attempts  to  provide  cultural  oppor- 
tunities for  the  laboring  man  or  woman  show  themselves  ten- 
tatively in  the  form  of  the  "  culture  wage,"  a  shorter  labor-day 
with  leisure  at  the  far  end  of  it,  the  five-day  week,  and  other  de- 
vices for  liberating  the  worker  from  the  bondage  of  his  task. 
These  are  on  the  subjective  side  of  the  question  concerning  man 
and  his  work.  (On  the  objective  side,  the  social  order  is  providing 
the  means  of  culture,  if  we  may  call  it  such,  in  the  form  of  the 
free  library,  cheap  books,  inexpensive  reprints  of  classic  works  of 
art,  extension  courses,  home  study,  municipal  concerts,  radio, 
moving  pictures,  and  the  like.  These  are  at  least  gestures  in  the 
direction  of  culture  or  a  recognition  that  the  people  in  an  indus- 
trial democracy  deserve  and  demand  more  than  work  and  wage. 
Whether  or  not  these  means  of  culture  are  used  in  the  new  lei- 
sure is  a  question  for  the  laboring  man  and  woman. 


94  FORMS  OF  CULTURE 

CULTURE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

The  problem  of  culture  and  democracy  runs  parallel  to  that  of 
culture  and  work.  The  conflict  between  culture  and  democracy 
is  based  on  the  traditional  notion  that  what  is  called  culture  means 
refinement  if  not  social  prestige,  a  certain  degree  of  wealth,  and 
a  tone  of  aristocracy.  However,  there  is  practically  nothing  in 
genuine  culture,  which  is  the  pursuit  of  art  and  science,  philoso- 
phy and  literature,  that  justifies  this  unhappy  conception.  An 
aristocratic  order  like  that  of  the  Greeks  with  their  \aloi  kagathoi, 
or  superior  men,  enjoyed  culture  because  it  had  opportunity  for 
it  in  connection  with  the  master-slave  organization  of  the  State. 
When  the  men  of  a  democracy  are  afforded  a  similar  opportunity, 
there  can  be  culture  for  those  who  desire  it  just  as  there  can  be 
wealth  or  political  office.  All  are  within  the  range  of  physical 
possibility  and  political  opportunity. 

Certainly  nothing  is  to  be  gained  by  pitting  the  intellectual  life 
of  man  against  man's  present  form  of  political  organization. 
Democracy  has  other  and  better  things  to  think  about  than  the 
prohibition  of  intellectual  and  aesthetic  experience.  Those  who 
oppose  culture  in  a  democracy  do  so  on  the  grounds  of  formal 
reasoning  that  has  little  to  do  with  facts  and  tendencies.  Their 
implicit  argument  can  be  expressed  in  syllogistic  form  as  follows: 

Everything  that  is  opposed  to  democracy  is  bad 
Culture  is  opposed  to  democracy 
Culture  is  bad 

There  is  no  doubt  about  the  validity  of  this  argument  once  the 
major  premise  is  assumed,  but  suppose  we  prefer  to  change  the 
terms  in  such  a  way  as  to  prove  the  contrary.  Then  we  shall  have 
this  syllogism,  which  is  equally  cogent: 

Everything  that  is  opposed  to  culture  is  bad 
Democracy  is  opposed  to  culture 
Democracy  is  bad 

All  depends  upon  the  point  of  view  as  this  reveals  itself  in  the 
major  premise,  but  these  rival  premises,  the  first  democratic,  the 
second  aristocratic,  lead  us  nowhere  in  connection  with  our  liv- 


DECADENCE  AND  DILETTANTISM  95 

ing  problem,  which  is  that  of  relating  culture  to  our  social  and 
political  life  rather  than  of  divorcing  it  from  our  vital  existence. 
If  we  cannot  harmonize  our  philosophy  of  culture  with  our  po- 
litical democracy,  we  can  worry  along  with  contrary  ideals  just 
as  we  do  with  free  will  and  determinism,  belief  and  doubt,  capi- 
talism and  communism. 

If  we  assume,  as  we  have  a  right  to  do  by  virtue  of  the  integrity 
of  the  spirit  that  is  within  us,  that  both  culture  and  democracy 
are  among  our  modern  values,  we  may  be  able  to  realize  that  the 
fusion  of  these  values  can  be  of  mutual  advantage.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  democracy  with  its  mass  and  mob  tendency  stands 
in  special  need  of  all  the  intelligence  and  refinement  that  can 
come  from  the  pursuit  of  science  and  art.  Democracy  with  its 
leveling  tendency  ever  stands  in  need  of  the  elevation  that  comes 
from  enlightenment.  The  present  plight  of  democracy  with  its 
tendency  to  gravitate  toward  communism  is  pathetic,  the  condi- 
tion of  sheep  without  either  shepherd  or  sheepfold.  Democracy 
may  need  a  more  equable  distribution  of  this  world's  goods,  more 
faith,  and  better  physical  health,  but  it  stands  in  need  of  culture 
also. 

DECADENCE  AND  DILETTANTISM 

On  the  other  hand,  the  old  culture  that  became  too  effete  and 
impotent  in  the  old  aristocratic  regime,  and  deserved  the  hectic 
criticism  of  Rousseau  and  the  more  healthy  criticism  of  Voltaire 
and  Goethe,  stands  in  need  of  democratic  rejuvenation,  otherwise 
it  will  continue  to  be  decadent.  "  Decadence  "  has  its  own  mean- 
ing and  place  in  XlXth-century  literature,  where  it  involves  the 
work  of  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  who  anticipated  it.  But  the  thing  it- 
self is  capable  of  an  interpretation  and  application  broader  than 
the  purely  literary;  it  means  something  cultural  and  social.  "  By 
the  word  Decadence,"  says  Paul  Bourget,  "  one  denotes  that  state 
of  society  which  produces  too  large  a  number  of  individuals  who 
are  unfitted  for  the  work  of  common  life."  3  From  this  definition 
and  what  follows  from  it,  we  are  in  a  position  to  see  and  to  state 
that  democracy  in  culture  is  the  thing  needed  to  check  or  even 
prevent  decadence  in  art  and  life. 

3  Essais  de  psychologic  contemporainc  (1883),  p.  24, 


^  FORMS  OF  CULTURE 

Bourget  follows  the  principles  of  social  biology  and  social  evolu- 
tion pretty  much  after  the  manner  of  XlXth-century  sociology,  so 
that  some  of  his  methods  of  expressing  his  ideas  may  be  some- 
what outmoded  although  their  inherent  truth  may  remain.  The 
individual  is  to  Bourget  a  social  cell  whose  particular  functioning 
makes  possible  the  functioning  of  the  social  organism  generally. 
Usually  the  individual  cell  expresses  its  energy  in  subordination 
to  the  energy  of  the  social  organism.  When,  however,  individual, 
cellular  energy  becomes  independent,  the  tendency  engendered  is 
that  of  anarchy.  Now  it  is  the  social  organism  itself  rather  than 
the  mere  individual  that  produces  such  anarchy,  for  development 
and  decadence  follow  one  and  the  same  law.  That  is  to  say, 
while  society  is  perfecting  itself  through  civilization  and  culture, 
it  so  overdoes  its  own  work  that  the  civilized,  cultured  individual 
makes  his  escape  from  the  social  organism  which  produced  and 
perfected  him.  Such  was  the  situation  that  obtained  throughout 
the  rise  and  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  this  philosophy  of  development 
and  decadence  is  far  too  sweeping.  It  appears  to  be  more  a  per- 
sonal opinion  than  a  general  view  and  indicates  a  certain  amount 
of  enthusiasm  for  the  decadent  movement.  Thus  it  is  wiser  to  as- 
sume that  decadence  is  confined  to  a  certain  class  of  artists  and 
aesthetes  within  the  broad  circle  of  those  who  create  and  appre- 
ciate sound  art.  At  the  present  time,  culture  as  expressed  by  the 
fine  arts  betrays  a  decadent  tendency  in  such  things  as  a  futuristic 
building,  an  impressionistic  work  of  sculpture,  the  pursuit  of  un- 
recognizability  in  painting,  unintelligibility  in  poetry,  and  various 
cacophonic  effects  in  music.  If  culture  can  be  made  democratic, 
so  that  people  generally  shall  set  the  standard  of  taste  now  being 
left  to  a  restricted  and  irresponsible  group,  these  decadent  distor- 
tions may  give  place  to  genuine  developments. 

The  modern  experiment  of  democratic  culture  is  hampered  by 
dilettantism  as  much  as  it  is  hindered  by  decadence.  The  de- 
cadent withdraws  from  the  social  order  and  seeks  refuge  in  a 
quasi-intellectual  region  as  the  Latin  Quarter  in  Paris  or  Green- 
wich Village  in  New  York.  These  sections  afford  a  home,  for 
genuine  artists  and  critics,  but  we  are  bound  to  associate  them 
with  harbors  of  refuge  for  those  who  are  unfit  for  both  art  and 


DECADENCE  AND  DILETTANTISiM  97 

work.  The  dilettant  resembles  the  decadent  and  may  be  just  as 
little  a  social  asset,  but  his  attitude  is  different.  The  dilettant  re- 
mains within  the  social  circle,  performs  his  tasks  there,  and  has 
both  a  place  and  work  in  the  world.  Our  criticism  of  him,  there- 
fore, must  be  cultural  rather  than  social.  The  dilettant  inclines 
to  affect  culture  instead  of  assuming  it  as  an  intellectual  burden, 
just  as  he  regards  art  as  something  more  emotional  than  mental. 
He  takes  delight,  or  diletto,  in  beautiful  objects  of  all  sorts,  but 
does  not  realize  their  meaning  as  forms  of  expression  put  forth 
by  the  artist  to  be  energized  by  the  beholder. 

When  dilettantism  assumes  an  intellectual  form,  it  is  usually 
in  connection  with  up-to-date  ideas  and  impressions.  The  classic 
conception  of  things  in  both  art  and  science  is  set  aside  with  the 
feeling  that  the  world  of  culture  was  created  about  the  year  1900. 
There  is,  perhaps,  such  a  thing  as  genuine  dilettantism,  if  we  may 
so  speak,  and  we  shall  see  presently  how  the  French  have  made  a 
type  of  national  culture  out  of  emotional  mentality.  There  is  a 
lightness  of  touch  and  an  ease  of  apprehension  that  is  peculiar  to 
all  culture,  which  makes  it  different  from  science.  But  the  pres- 
ent age  is  not  sounding  the  depths  of  dilettantism,  if  we  may  use 
another  doubtful  form  of  expression.  It  is  not  indulging  the  mas- 
sive emotions  that  aesthetic  expression  is  calculated  to  produce. 
The  result  is  sophistication.  The  sophisticated  person  is  awake  to 
the  latest  fad  or  fashion  in  art  or  science,  le  dernier  cri*  He  knows 
his  Freud  or  Einstein,  he  is  quite  familiar  with  Futurism,  Cubism, 
or  Dadaism.  But  the  kind  of  culture  that  withdraws  mankind 
from  nature,  arouses  remote  interests,  and  for  the  sake  of  human- 
ity creates  an  inner  life  is  a  more  serious  matter.  This  will  ap- 
pear when  various  types  of  national  culture  are  examined. 

Long  before  this  can  be  done,  however,  we  must  take  special 
and  somewhat  detailed  cognizance  of  the  historical  cultures  that 
have  made  their  impression  upon  the  western  world  and  given 
form  to  our  own  minds.  We  might  traverse  the  whole  field  of 
culture  and  glance  at  the  various  types,  including  the  Africo- 
Egyptian,  Mongolian,  Hindu,  Persian,  Aztec,  and  the  like.  Then, 
however,  we  should  be  like  travelers  who  go  round  the  world  to 
see  what  in  general  it  is  like.  But  we  shall  confine  our  views  to 
those  cultures  that  have  influenced  our  life  and  thought,  the  Medi- 

S.T. — 8 


98  FORMS  OF  CULTURE 

terranean  cultures  of  Hebrew,  Greek,  and  Roman.  Thus  we 
shall  be  like  student-travelers  who  visit  the  lands  whose  history 
has  bearing  upon  their  study.  The  bearing  that  Africa  and  Asia 
have  had  upon  Europe  will  be  found  included  in  the  three  forms 
we  shall  examine.  At  the  present  time,  the  Far  East  is  beginning 
to  affect  us  and  hence  we  shall  have  to  inquire  into  the  nature  and 
extent  of  oriental  influence.  But  the  East  is  affecting  the  West 
only  after  the  form  and  character  of  western  culture  has  been  de- 
termined, hence  this  slanting  influence  need  not  be  noted  until 
the  direct  forms  of  occidental  culture  have  been  determined.  We 
begin  with  the  religious  influence  of  the  Hebrews. 


CHAPTER  V 
HEBREW  RELIGION 


JUDAISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY 

THE  READER  OF  KIPLING*S  Recessional  IS  BOUND  TO  BE  IMPRESSED 
by  the  poetic  beauty  and  reverential  spirit  laid  upon  every 
line  of  the  English  psalm.  He  is  not  so  likely  to  observe 
the  Jewish  tone  of  such  a  modern  poem.  It  is  addressed  to  the 
"  God  of  our  fathers,  known  of  old/1  calls  upon  the  Lord  God  of 
Hosts  to  keep  England  in  mind  of  Nineveh  and  Tyre,  refers  with 
contempt  to  the  "  lesser  breeds  without  the  law,"  and  would  have 
the  late  Victorians  abhor  "  such  boasting  as  the  Gentiles  use." 
The  reception  of  this  poem  in  both  school  and  church  is  one 
among  a  multitude  of  indications  of  the  way  in  which  the 
"  lesser  breeds  "  in  the  Europe  of  the  last  nineteen  centuries 
adopted  and  absorbed  a  religious  belief  not  intended  for  and  per- 
haps not  adapted  to  them;  for,  in  accepting  Christianity,  Europe 
did  not  stop  until  it  had  borrowed  also  the  Judaism  from  which 
that  Christianity  had  emerged.  However,  to  be  an  orthodox 
Christian  has  often  amounted  to  being  something  more  than  a 
half-orthodox  Hebrew.  To  accept  the  teaching  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, likewise,  used  to  mean  that  the  believer  should  accept  old 
Hebrew  tradition  as  to  the  Mosaic  authorship  of  the  Pentateuch. 
Now,  if  the  factors  of  race  and  language  had  been  operative  in 
European  history,  we  should  be  worshiping  Brahma,  reciting 
the  hymns  of  the  Ei\  Veda,  and  writing  theology  upon  the  basis 
of  the  Ufanishads.  But,  as  it  has  turned  out  historically,  we  have 
taken  our  religion  from  one  of  the  Semitic  peoples. 

What  was  there  about  the  Hebrews  in  distinction  from  other 
Semites,  such  as  the  Babylonians  and  Assyrians,  Arabs  and  Phoe- 
nicians, that  made  them  feel  themselves  to  be  the  Chosen  People 
and  later  made  them  the  religious  educators  of  the  western 
world?  "Among  the  theocratically  governed  nations  of  the 
East,"  said  Lotze,  "  the  Hebrews  seem  to  us  as  sober  men  among 
drunkards,  but  to  antiquity  they  seemed  like  dreamers  among 


I00  HEBREW  RELIGION 

waking  folk" *  The  Hebrews  were  distinguished  from  other  na- 
tions o£  the  ancient  world  chiefly  by  the  fact  that  they  took  a 
historical  rather  than  a  naturalistic  point  of  view,  whereby  they 
were  able  to  ignore  the  symbolism  suggested  by  the  objects  of 
nature  and  proceed  toward  the  future  of  their  race  if  not  of  all 
mankind.  To  compare  the  Psalms  with  the  hymns  of  the  Veda 
is  to  see  this  at  once.  To  consider  the  Hebrew  idea  of  God  is  to 
realize  how  all  the  objects  of  nature,  the  heavenly  bodies  and 
the  forms  of  life  on  earth,  are  nothing  in  themselves,  but  are  de- 
pendent upon  the  Divine  Will.  Now,  such  conceptions  as  these 
came  to  appeal  to  the  European  mind  as  sensible  considerations; 
they  make  their  appeal  even  at  this  late  date  in  the  history  of  the 
West.  For  we  believe  that  all  nature  is  subject  to  an  intelligible 
principle  of  some  sort;  we  think  of  mankind  as  the  subject  of  his- 
torical progress.  Hence,  in  spite  of  certain  outer  peculiarities  in 
Hebrew  religion,  as  its  racial  character  and  persistent  ceremonial- 
ism, we  are  inclined  to  feel  that  Hebraism  is  acceptable  to  our 
western  ideals  and  intentions. 


THE  ORIGIN  OF 'THE  HEBREWS 

We  refer  to  the  Hebrews  as  an  oriental  people,  and  doubtless 
they  were  eminently  so  at  the  beginning  of  their  existence  in  their, 
original  home.  This  was  somewhere  east  of  the  Euphrates  River, 
in  the  land -of  Chaldea  or  Babylonia-.  •  But  when  the  Hebrews. 
migrated  thence,  about  the  year  2000  B.C.,  and  sought-  a  place  -of' 
a  purer  worship  than  they  had  previously  known,  it  was  as  though, 
they  detached  themselves  from  the  Orient,  forsook  its  sensualistic 
spirit  to  elaborate  an  unusual  form  of  religious  belief  and  practice. 
The  accounts  in  Genesis  make  mention  of  the  fact  that  Abraham's 
father  left  Ur  of  the  Chaldees  with  all  his  household,  household 
goods,  his  flocks  and  herds,  and  settled  temporarily  around 
Haran.  A  beginning  having  been,  made,  Abraham  himself  left 
Haran  and  proceeded  westward  to  the  land  of  Canaan  at  the  very 
edge  of  the  eastern  world.  The-  land  was  strategically  and  con- 
veniently located  for  the  development  and  dispensation  of  a  great 
sentiment.  It  was  in  touch  with  the  African  culture  of  Egypt, 

*  Microcostmts^tf.  Ha#iilton  and  Jones,  Bk.  VII,  Ch,  V,  §  5; ; 


THE  CALL  OF  ABRAHAM  IOI 

and  was  quite  accessible  by  caravan  routes  to  Babylonia  and 
Assyria.  None  the  less  was  it  in  geographical  touch  by  land  and 
sea  with  Europe,  so  that  it  was  a  simple  matter  when,  later,  the 
Apostle  Paul  decided  to  pass  over  from  Asia  Minor  to  Macedonia, 
The  isolation  which  the  primitive  Hebrews  desired  was  thus 
more  psychological  than  physical;  the  geographical  position  be- 
tween Egypt  and  Assyria  was  both  advantageous  and  perilous. 
There  the  Hebrews  elaborated  their  unique  worship;  thence  they 
went  into  Egyptian  bondage  and  Babylonian  captivity. 

The  history  of  the  Hebrews  dates  from  Abraham's  departure 
from  Mesopotamia.  Already  his  father,  Terah,  had  planned  to 
enter  the  land  of  Canaan,  but  in  breaking  away  from  the  Chal- 
dean city  of  Ur  and  making  his  journey  round  the  northern  end 
of  the  desert  he  had  gone  no  farther  than  the  city  of  Haran. 
When,  therefore,  Abraham  completed  the  pilgrimage  and  reached 
the  land  of  Canaan,  he  was  but  carrying  out  the  paternal  plan. 
The  movements  and  activities  of  this  little  band,  including  Abra- 
ham's household  and  that  of  his  nephew  Lot,  may  be  stated 
briefly,  and  their  significance  may  with  equal  directness  be  indi- 
cated. Yet  we  may  pause  a  moment  to  suggest  that  Abraham's 
significant  journey  was  quite  in  keeping  with  his  nomadic  type 
of  life,  while  his  journey  to  and  beyond  Canaan  was  in  harmony 
with  his  adventurous  spirit.  Moreover,  there  was  in  his  heart,  as 
there  had  been  in  the  heart  of  his  father  before  him,  a  desire  to 
sever  social  and  spiritual  relationships  in  Chaldea,  a  land  no 
longer  productive  of  religious  promise. 

THE  CALL  OF  ABRAHAM 

The  famous  "  call  "  of  Abraham  was  such  as  to  get  him  out  of 
his  home  country,  his  kindred,  and  his  father's  house,  and  to  set 
his  face  toward  the  land  of  a  new  habitation.  How  terse  the  his- 
torical account!  "  And  they  went  forth  to  go  into  the  land  of 
Canaan,  and  into  the  land  of  Canaan  they  came." 2  The  coun- 
try seemed  promising  although,  as  the  record  states,  "the  Ca- 
naanite  was  then  in  the  land,"  the  Hamitic  Canaanite  who,  later, 
was  to  be  the  deadly  foe  of  the  Israelite.  The  pious  nomad 

2  Gen.  XII,  5. 


I02  HEBREW  RELIGION 

pitched  his  tent  and  built  an  altar  between  Bethel  and  Hai,  but 
his  stay  was  brief.  A  famine  occurs  and  the  lure  of  Egyptian 
grain  draws  him  farther  south.  Upon  entering  the  land  of  the 
Pharaohs,  Abraham  fears  that  the  fairness  of  his  wife,  Sarai,  will 
tempt  the  Egyptian  to  kill  him  and  take  her;  whereupon  he 
persuades  this  comely  Oriental,  whom  apparently  "  age  cannot 
wither,"  to  pass  herself  off  as  his  sister.  The  story  is  told  with 
the  usual  brevity  of  patriarchal  history. 

"  And  it  came  to  pass  that,  when  Abram  was  come  into  Egypt, 
the  Egyptians  beheld  the  woman  that  she  was  very  fair.  The 
princes  also  of  Pharaoh  saw  her  and  commended  her  before 
Pharaoh;  and  the  woman  was  taken  into  Pharaoh's  house.  And 
he  entreated  Abram  well  for  her  sake;  and  he  had  sheep  and 
oxen,  and  he-asses  and  menservants,  and  maidservants,  and  she- 
asses  and  camels." 3  But  a  plague,  the  first  that  Israel  was  to 
bring  upon  Egypt,  fell  upon  the  house  of  Pharaoh.  The  vulgar 
trick  is  exposed,  and  the  superstitious  Egyptian  commands  the 
patriarch  to  take  his  wife  and  all  his  company  away.  It  was  not 
long  before  Abraham  and  his  band  are  back  at  the  site  of  the 
tent  and  altar  between  Bethel  and  Hai,  only  this  time  the  ad- 
venturous nomad  is  rich  in  cattle,  in  silver,  and  in  gold.  Indeed, 
the  herds  were  so  large  that  there  was  not  room  enough  for  them; 
hence  the  historic  separation  of  Abraham  and  Lot.  It  was  in 
connection  with  the  unfortunate  Lot,  who  was  taken  prisoner  in 
the  mysterious  warfare  of  the  four  and  five  kings,  that  the  same 
Abraham  showed  a  certain  amount  of  military  strategy.  This  he 
did  by  engaging  Chedorlaomer  in  front  while  the  other  half  of 
his  improvised  army  attacked  him  in  the  rear. 

The  nai've  tales  of  the  Hebrew  patriarchs  convey  a  significance 
which  cannot  be  discovered  by  any  analytical  process,  for  there 
was  no  patriarchal  theology.  The  psychology  of  such  early  re- 
ligion seems  to  reveal  these  early  believers  as  strong  and  active 
men  who  were  convinced  of  a  national  destiny  and  a  Divine 
Providence  guiding  them  toward  a  far-off  future  of  their  race. 
"Beautiful  is  it,  therefore,"  said  Goethe,  "that  the  Israelitish 
tradition  represents  the  very  first  men  who  confide  in  this  par- 
ticular Providence  as  heroes  of  faith,  following  all  the  commands 
3  Gen.  XII,  14-16. 


THE  HEBREWS  IN  EGYPT  IO3 

of  that  High  Being  on  whom  they  acknowledge  themselves  de- 
pendent, just  as  blindly  as,  undisturbed  by  doubts,  they  are  un- 
wearied in  awaiting  the  later  fulfillment  of  his  promises." 4  In 
the  minds  of  later  Biblical  characters,  primarily  St.  Paul,  the 
sweet  strength  of  the  patriarch's  faith  is  practically  identified  with 
the  kind  of  belief  demanded  by  a  universal  and  spiritual  religion. 
For  Abraham  believed  and  it  was  counted  unto  him  for  right- 
eousness.6 

In  the  same  manner,  we  observe,  as  though  we  were  trying  to 
trace  the  outlines  of  a  faded  picture,  the  strange  encounter  of 
Abraham  and  Melchizedec,  king  of  Salem  and  priest  of  the  Most 
High  God,  who  met  the  military  patriarch  after  his  slaughter  of 
the  kings  and  gave  him  his  blessing.  The  original  account  of  this 
strange  meeting  between  two  shadowy  figures  in  history  contains 
some  three  score  words,  yet  out  of  it  was  destined  to  emerge 
the  ideal  of  a  pure  and  spiritual  priesthood  free  from  legalism 
and  full  of  power,  "  the  power  of  an  endless  life."  6  Indeed,  the 
writers  of  the  New  Testament,  while  appreciative  of  the  merits 
findable  in  the  Law  and  the  Prophets,  seem  inclined  to  revert  to 
the  patriarchs  for  the  patterns  of  the  believing  mind. 

THE  HEBREWS  IN  EGYPT 

From  the  life  of  Isaac,  the  man  of  laughter,  we  glean  no  spir- 
itual insight.  We  associate  him  with  the  story  that  tells  how  his 
aged  father,  following  an  ancient  custom,  attempted  to  sacrifice 
him,  the  first-born,  on  the  fiery  altar.  We  read  with  truly  human 
interest  the  long  chapter 7  in  which  his  courtship  of  Rebecca  is 
recounted.  Jacob  appeals  to  us  less  pleasantly  but  with  some- 
what more  significance,  yet  his  religious  intuitions  exemplified 
in  his  vision  of  the  heavenly  ladder  seem  to  lack  the  sincerity  and 
simplicity  -of  the  spiritual  insight  of  his  ancestor  Abraham. 
Jacob,  however,  is  important  in  Hebrew  history  in  that  he  be- 
came the  father  of  the  children  of  Israel,  founders  of  the  twelve 
tribes.  Although  Jacob's  favorite  son,  Joseph,  failed  to  fall  heir 
to  any  tribal  headship,  he  became  the  most  significant  figure  in 

4  Truth  and  Fiction  from  my  Life,  Bk.  4.  6  Heb.  VII. 

5  Gen.  XV,  6;  Rom.  IV,  3.  7  Gen.  XXIV. 


I04  HEBREW  RELIGION 

the  family.  This  appears  in  Israel's  relation  to  Egypt;  it  involves 
the  everlasting  question  of  food.  The  fertile  plain  of  Mesopo- 
tamia, whence  the  Hebrews  came,  and  the  rich  valley  of  the  Nile, 
to  which  they  repaired,  bloomed  in  contrast  to  the  less  fertile  land 
of  Canaan. 

In  the  time  of  Joseph,  there  was  a  famine  in  the  land  of  Canaan 
and  its  inhabitants  were  forced  down  into  Egypt  for  their  food, 
as  had  been  the  case  in  the  days  of  Abraham.  Joseph  was  al- 
ready there,  having  been  sold  to  Pharaoh  by  the  brothers,  who 
were  jealous  of  him  and  envious  of  his  famous  coat  of  many 
colors.  By  the  time  the  hungry  brothers  arrived,  Joseph  was 
already  in  high  favor  with  the  king,  for  it  was  due  to  the  fore- 
sight, if  not  the  shrewdness,  of  the  Hebrew  steward  that  the 
Egyptian  granaries  were  full  of  corn.  Joseph  is  famous  in  Bib- 
lical history  for  his  display  of  chastity  in  the  matter  of  Potiphar's 
wife;  his  private  life  was  beyond  reproach.  Not  so  his  public 
conduct,  for  in  the  period  of  the  great  famine  he  was  guilty  of 
both  extortion  and  a  kind  of  secret  rebate.  Taking  advantage 
of  the  situation,  he  made  the  improvident  Egyptians  sacrifice 
their  money,  their  cattle,  and  their  lands  for  corn.  At  the  same 
time,  when  his  brethren  came  to  buy  the  corn,  he  restored  their 
money  secretly,  by  putting  the  money  paid  back  into  the  sacks  of 
grain. 

The  result  of  the  famine  was  the  settlement  of  the  Hebrews 
in  Egypt?  for  Pharaoh  set  aside  for  their  habitation  the  land  of 
Goshen.  The  length  of  this  excursion  or  "  exile  "  in  Egypt  is 
not  easy  to  determine;  one  Biblical  record  makes  it  four  genera- 
tions,8 another  four  centuries.9  Egyptian  records  themselves,  as 
found  in  the  Tel-el-Amarna  tablets,  reveal  the  relationship  be- 
tween Egypt  and  Palestine  and  make  the  story  of  Joseph's  stew- 
ardship and  Pharaoh's  kindness  appear  plausible.  The  change  o£ 
Pharaohs  brought  about  the  accession  of  the  king  that  "  knew 
not  Joseph,"  so  that  what  had  been  a  sojourn  to  secure  food  be- 
came a  real  exile  of  captivity.  The  Hebrews  became  slaves,  with 
taskmasters  over  them,  and  were  forced  to  build  for  the  new 
Pharaoh  the  treasure  cities  of  Pithom  and  Raamses.10  This  oc- 

8  Gen.  XV,  16;  Ex.  VI,  16-20,  10  Ex.  I,  n. 

9  Gen.  XV,  13;  Ex.  XII,  40. 


CARAVAN  OF  CANAANITES.  ABOUT  1900  B.C. 
Painting  on  an  Egyptian  tomb. 


ANCIENT  EGYPTIAN  PAINTING  OF  CAPTIVES  WORKING  IN  A  BRICK- 
YARD, ABOUT  1600  B.C. 


CARVING  ON  THE  TEMPLE  AT  ABYDOS,  SHOWING  AMORITE 

ACTUARIES  OF  A  HlTTITE  ARMY 
(facing  page  W4"} 


THE  CAREER  OF  MOSES  IO5 

casioned  the  famous  incident  of  "  bricks  without  straw."  It  was 
not  that  the  enslaved  brick-layers  were  expected  to  build  in  such 
an  impossible  way;  it  was  that  they  were  both  to  make  the  bricks 
and  scour  the  whole  land  in  search  of  straw  or  stubble  for  the 
clay.  The  obvious  purpose  of  this  was  to  keep  the  Hebrews 
from  congregating  and  carrying  on  the  worship  of  their  national 
deity.11  It  was  this  oppression  that  made  Israel  ripe  for  the  na- 
tional deliverer  that  was  to  appear  in  the  heroic  form  of  Moses. 

THE  CAREER  OF  MOSES 

The  early  life  of  Moses  from  his  birth  to  the  birth  of  his  son  is 
recounted  in  some  twenty  verses  of  the  2d  chapter  of  Exodus. 
It  is  well  known  how,  at  the  age  of  three  months,  he  was  taken 
by  his  mother  and  hidden  in  the  flags  by  the  river's  brink  there 
to  be  found  by  none  other  than  Pharaoh's  daughter,  who  adopted 
him  and  called  him  "  Moses,"  the  one  drawn  out.  In  the  court 
of  Pharaoh,  Moses  must  have  acquired  Egyptian  ideas,  since  he 
was  referred  to  later  as  a  man  "  learned  in  all  the  wisdom  of  the 
Egyptians."  12  But,  while  his  mind  may  have  been  molded  in 
this  way,  his  heart  was  with  the  people  from  whom,  for  the  time, 
he  had  been  separated.  For  when  he  sallied  forth^from  the  court 
to  visit  his  Hebrew  brethren  he  observed  one  suffering  at  the 
hands  of  an  Egyptian  taskmaster,  whom  he  promptly  slew.  It 
was  the  fear  of  being  charged  with  this  act  of  manslaughter  that 
drove  Moses  out  of  Goshen  into  Midian,  on  the  peninsula  be- 
tween the  arms  of  the  Red  Sea.  It  was  here  that  he  met  and  mar- 
ried the  daughter  of  Jethro,  priest  of  Midian,  But  this  amounted 
to  more  than  primitive  romance  and  domesticity,  for  it  was  - 
Moses'  father-in-law  who,  some  time  after  the  historic  exodus, 
visited  Moses  and  advised  him  to  give  the  people  laws  and  ap- 
point judges  over  them.13 

The  Midian  retirement  of  Moses  and  his  temporary  detach- 
ment from  his  own  people  and  their  oppressors  were  fruitful  of 
both  a  political  plan  and  a  theological  principle.  The  political 
plan  was  the  well-known  one  —  to  deliver  Israel  out  of  the  hand 
of  the  Egyptians  and  establish  a  theocratic  nation  in  the  land  of 

11  Ex.  V,  7-17.  12  Acts  VII,  22.  13  Ex.  XVIII. 


I0g  HEBREW  RELIGION 

promise  to  which  Abraham  had  taken  title.  The  theological 
principle  is  not  so  familiar  to  us.  It  begins  to  unfold  itself  when 
Moses  has  his  mystic  conversation  with  the  Deity.  "  When  I 
come  unto  the  children  of  Israel  and  shall  say  unto  them,  The 
God  of  your  fathers  hath  sent  me  unto  you;  and  they  shall  say 
to  me,  What  is  his  name?  what  shall  I  say  unto  them  ?  And  God 
said  unto  Moses,  I  AM  THAT  I  AM  ...  and  say  unto  the 
children  of  Israel,  I  AM  hath  sent  me  unto  you." 14  This  strange 
incident  clears  up  somewhat  when  the  Deity  is  represented  as 
speaking  in  the  following  manner:  "  And  spake  Elohim  to  Moses 
and  said  to  him,  I  am  Jahweh.  And  I  appeared  to  Abraham  and 
to  Isaac  and  to  Jacob  and  El  Shaddai  but  by  my  name  Jahweh  I 
was  not  known  to  them." 15  It  was  this  new  God,  if  we  may  thus 
express  it,  who  was  to  be  the  national  Deity  of  the  Hebrew  peo- 
ple; no  longer  the  benign  Providence  of  a  wandering  tribe  of 
mystics,  but  the  stern  ruler  of  a  race  which  was  destined  to  in- 
dulge political  ambitions  and  be  a  nation  along  with  the  other 
nations  of  the  East. 

THE  EXODUS 

The  sojourn  of  the  Hebrews  in  Egypt,  where  they  were  re- 
puted to  have  spent  over  four  hundred  years,  was  brought  to  a 
spectacular  close.  The  vigorous  exodus  was  achieved  under  the 
guidance  of  the  national  hero  who  as  an  infant  had  been  drawn 
from  his  hiding  place  on  the  reedy  river  bank  and  installed  in 
the  court  of  Pharaoh.  Moses,  back  from  brooding  in  the  land  of 
Midian,  accomplished  the  deliverance  by  magic  and  miracle,  by 
the  rod  he  had  handed  to  his  brother  Aaron  and  by  his  own 
hand.  The  one  was  to  break  down  the  hardness  of  Pharaoh's 
heart,  the  other  to  part  the  waters  of  the  Red  Sea.  In  breaking 
down  Pharaoh's  resistance,  it  was  necessary  for  Moses,  or  Aaron 
through  Moses,  to  perform  feats  of  magic  which  the  magicians 
of  old  Egypt  could  not  match.  Aaron  throws  down  the  rod  and 
it  becomes  a  serpent.  "  Now  the  magicians  of  Egypt,  they  also 
did  in  like  manner  with  their  enchantments." 16  Aaron's  rod 
works  greater  magic  when  it  turns  the  river  into  blood,  but  the 

™  Ex.  Ill,  13-14.         ie  Ex.  VII,  ir. 
15  Ex.  VI,  2-3,  from  the  original  Hebrew. 


THE  EXODUS  I0y 

enchantments  of  the  native  sorcerers  were  equally  effective. 
Likewise  with  the  magical  multiplication  of  frogs  which  plagued 
the  whole  land.  Not  so,  however,  with  the  plague  of  lice  which 
the  rod  of  Aaron  conjured  up  to  disconcert  the  older  magicians 
and  make  them  confess,  "  This  is  the  finger  of  God."  From  then 
on,  the  two  Hebrew  brothers,  working  in  concert,  devise  and  ac- 
complish some  seven  other  plagues  —  plague  of  flies,  murrain  of 
beasts,  epidemic  of  boils,  fiery  hail  stones,  locusts,  a  darkness  that 
could  be  fairly  felt,  and  death  of  the  first-born  beginning  with  the 
first-born  of  Pharaoh  and  descending  even  unto  the  dungeon  and 
the  cattle-barn.17 

The  positive  part  of  the  Hebrew  exodus  involved  the  famous 
crossing  of  the  Red  Sea.  The  narrative  advances  from  the  magic 
worked  by  Aaron's  rod  to  the  miracle  worked  by  Moses'  hand, 
which  he  stretched  out  over  the  waters.  It  happened  that  a 
strong  east  wind  had  been  blowing  all  night  rendering  the  sea, 
presumably  at  low  tide,  unusually  shallow  and  making  passage 
through  it  a  physical  possibility.  The  narrative  does  not  fail  to 
add  that,  even  so,  the  waters  were  as  a  wall  to  right  and  left  of 
the  flying  multitude,  while  it  goes  on  to  state  that,  in  obedience 
to  another  sublime  gesture  on  the  part  of  Moses, "  the  sea  returned 
to  his  strength"  and  overwhelmed  the  pursuing  Egyptians, 
chariots  and  horsemen  and  all  the  host  of  Pharaoh.  The  tri- 
umphant poem  of  Moses,  to  which  his  sister  Miriam  and  all  the 
women,  timbrel  in  hand,  sang  and  danced,  seemed  to  indicate 
that  this  hurriedly  organized  host  would  proceed  at  once  into 
the  promised  land  and  spread  sorrow  among  the  inhabitants  of 
Palestina,  or  Philistia;  but  the  poet  was  also  a  man  of  affairs, 
hence  the  entrance  into  the  land  was  delayed  for  a  generation. 

What  Moses  did  with  his  unorganized,  undisciplined  people 
was  to  lead  them  down  into  the  little  Sinai  peninsula  east  of 
Egypt,  where  the  runaways  could  be  drilled  and  a  new  genera- 
tion brought  into  existence  and  transformed  into  a  body  of  war- 
riors. Doubtless  these  Hebrews  were  something  like  an  Arab 
tribe  today,  apt  for  discipline  and  willing  to  meet  the  exigencies 
of  rigorous  religious  belief.  Furthermore,  this  sequestered  life 
on  the  peninsula  begot  a  sense  of  mutual  dependence  and  a  still 

™  Ex.  VII-X. 


I0g  HEBREW  RELIGION 

greater  dependence  upon  the  new  Deity.  At  Sinai,  or  Horeb, 
the  new  religiosocial  policy  was  slowly  installed.  Much  o£  this 
work  we  must  surmise,  since  the  actual  account  of  what  took 
place  in  the  wilderness  of  the  wandering  is  confined  to  a  record 
of  but  two  of  the  forty  years  passed  there.  We  have,  however,  a 
description  of  the  giving  of  the  law  and  must  determine  as  best 
we  can  how  much  meaning  is  attributable  to  the  well-known 
saying,  "  The  law  was  given  by  Moses."  The  time  will  come  in 
this  chapter  when  we  shall  have  to  consider  what  literary  con- 
nection Moses  had  with  the  five  books  that  bear  his  name;  but 
now  it  is  a  question  of  Moses  and  that  indefinite  thing  known 
as  "  the  law." 

MOSES  AS  LEGISLATOR 

We  have  pictured  Moses  as  a  kind  of  Xenophon  leading  a  tri- 
umphant retreat.  Can  we  think  of  him  after  the  pattern  of  a 
Lycurgus?  Jewish  jurisprudence  is  found  in  parts  of  Exodus 
and  Numbers,  in  most  of  Deuteronomy  and  all  of  Leviticus, 
books  which  contain  the  law  in  its  finished  form.  When  we 
examine  such  a  work  on  canon  law  as  Leviticus,  we  find  a  de- 
tailed system  of  priestly  and  ceremonial  legislation  centered  in  a 
temple,  concerned  with  sacrifices,  ceremonial  cleanness,  the  prohi- 
bition of  idolatry,  and  the  like.  This  we  cannot  fit  into  the  picture 
of  Moses  and  his  tribe,  who  worshiped  in  a  tent  at  an  earthen 
altar.  In  like  manner,  we  find  it  difficult  to  think  of  this  tribal 
leader  as  the  giver  of  the  Decalogue,  as  found  in  Exodus  XX 
and  Deuteronomy  V,  since  its  ethical  and  individual  standards  of 
righteousness  seem  too  ideal  for  a  folk  placed  in  a  very  realistic 
situation  —  journeying  in  a  wilderness. 

What  we  do  find,  however,  is  a  kind  of  impromptu  Decalogue 
in  Exodus  XXXIV.  This  consists  of  what  are  called  the  "  ten 
words  "  of  a  practical  and  religious  character  calculated  to  regu- 
late the  simple  worship  and  wholesome  conduct  of  a  rude  peo- 
ple. These  little  laws  forbade  idolatry,  commanded  the  observ- 
ance of  certain  sacred  times,  and  required  gifts  and  services.  It 
was  when  the  practical  lawgiver  came  down  from  Sinai  with 
these  two  tables  of  testimony  in  his  hands  that  his  face  shone 
with  such  brightness  that  the  people,  were  afraid  to  come  near 


HEBREWS  AND  HITTITES  IO9 

him.18  To  Moses  we  may  attribute  also  the  "  Book  of  the  Cove- 
nant" as  given  in  Exodus  XX,  following  almost  immediately 
upon  the  Decalogue  and  continuing  through  Chapter  XXIIL 
The  rest  of  the  jurisprudence  in  Exodus  and  Leviticus,  Numbers 
and  Deuteronomy  seem  to  the  reader  to  be  a  ceremonial  form 
to  the  "words"  with  which  Moses  communicated  the  will  of 
Jahweh  to  his  people,  hence  the  oft-recurring  expression,  "  And 
the  Lord  spake  unto  Moses." 

The  death  of  Moses  occurred  in  Moab,  atop  ML  Nebo  and 
within  sight  of  the  land  whither  he  led  his  people,  but  which  he 
himself  was  not  to  enter.  He  was  essentially  a  man  of  isolated 
life  although  a  leader  of  men,  and  it  was  thus  that  Alfred  de 
Vigny  in  his  poem  spoke  of  him  as  saying,  "  O  Lord,  thou  hast 
made  me  powerful  but  solitary  —  puissant  et  solitaire!'  With 
the  grave  of  Moses  behind  them  in  a  valley  of  Moab,  Israel  en- 
tered the  land  of  Canaan  that  had  been  promised  them.  Their 
real  history  as  a  nation  was  about  to  begin  and  their  national 
character  undergo  development.  To  this  historical  process  we 
may  allot  two  centuries,  one  for  the  mastery  of  the  land,  the  other 
for  the  development  of  their  little  kingdom;  a  period  of  judges 
and  an  era  of  kings.  The  connection  between  the  Mosaic  regime 
and-  the  inception  of  the  judges  is  made  by  the  .personality  of 
Joshua,  a  man,  something  after  the  manner  of  Moses  and  or- 
dained to.  succeed  him  in  the  capacity  of  personal  leader,19  • 

HEBREWS  AND  HITTITES   ' 

The  land  that  the  Israelites  entered  was  in  possession  of  groups 
of  Canaanitish  peoples  to  whom  we  may  refer  generally  as  Hit- 
tites.  These  had  been  quite  a  formidable  nation  able  to  carry 
on  some  sort  of  warfare  with  the  Egyptians  to  the  south  and  the 
Assyrians  in  the  north,  but  unsuccessful  combat  with  these 
mightier  forces  had  reduced  their  military  power  to  a  minimum, 
hence  they  were  fairly  -easy  foes  for-  their  new  enemy.20  As  "for 
the  Israelites,  the  occupation  of  Canaan  meant  the  exchange  of 
nomadic  existence  for  agricultural  life,  resulting  in  the  develop- 

18  Ex.  XXXIV,  29-30.  20  Sanders,  History  of  the  Hebrews,  p.  77. 

19  Num.  XXVII,  18;  Dettt.  I,  38,  etc. 


IIO  HEBREW  RELIGION 

ment  of  domestic,  social,  and  religious  forms.  After  the  passing 
of  the  personal,  Moses-like  leadership  of  Joshua,  they  settled 
down  to  some  sort  of  political  regime  under  what  they  called 
"  Judges."  These  impromptu  officials  were  far  from  being  what 
their  title  would  imply  except  as  we  regard  them  after  the  man- 
ner of  rural  justices  of  the  peace  or  police  magistrates  in  a  large 
city.  They  seem  to  have  been  men  of  natural  ability  to  whom 
the  people  turned  for  aid  and  advice,  and  in  their  robust  capacity 
of  judges  may  be  likened  to  some  of  our  pioneer  leaders,  such  as 
Daniel  Boone,  Davy  Crockett,  or  Andrew  Jackson. 

The  career  of  Israel  during  the  century  of  judges  yields  inter- 
esting materials  for  history,  but  does  not  constitute  a  brilliant 
record  of  a  nation.  The  spirit  of  the  period  is  summed  up  in  the 
last  verse  of  Judges:  "  In  those  days,  there  was  no  king  in  Israel; 
every  man  did  that  which  was  right  in  his  own  eyes."  The  story 
of  this  naive  anarchy  includes  the  crafty  murder  of  Sisera  at  the 
hands  of  Jael,  wife  of  Heber  the  Kenite,  as  also  the  robust  song 
of  Deborah  and  Barak,  which  celebrated  the  bloody  act.21  Here, 
in  this  crude  but  interesting  book,  we  read  of  Judge  Jephtha,  his 
famous  victory  over  the  Ammonites,  and  the  rash  vow  that  cost 
his  beautiful  daughter  her  life,22  Among  others  who  did  what 
was  right  in  his  own  eyes  was  Samson,  the  giant  and  humorist 
of  the  age.  He  seems  to  have  specialized  in  riddles  and  feats  of 
strength.  Thus  we  read  with  more  interest  than  credulity  of  his 
ability  to  strangle  a  lion,  catch  foxes  by  the  hundred,  and  slay  a 
thousand  men  with  the  jawbone  of  an  ass;  read  also  of  his  blind 
revenge  upon  the  Philistines  who,  aided  by  the  wily  Delilah,  had 
made  him  captive.  From  a  political  point  of  view,  we  are  more 
interested  in  Samuel,  practically  the  last  of  the  judges,  but,  above 
all,  the  original  king-maker  of  Israel. 

THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  KINGS 

The  history  of  Israel's  throne  is  recorded  in  the  four  Boofys  of 
the  Kings,  better  known  as  7  and  //  Samuel,  I  and  //  Kings.  A 
subsequent  account  of  the  kingdom  with  both  its  unified  and 
divided  throne  is  found  in  the  two  Booths  of  the  Chronicles.  The 

21  Judges  IV-V. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  KINGS  m 

reader  of  the  books  of  Samuel,  written  about  but  not  by  the  man 
whose  name  they  bear,  may  wonder  what  was  their  historical 
source.  He  observes  that,  in  the  second  book,  the  Biblical  writer 
refers  to  a  certain  "remembrancer"  or  recorder,  as  also  to  a 
scribe  or  "  secretary,5'  23  and  in  another  place  he  seems  to  be  quot- 
ing from  The  Boo^  of  Jasher?*  This  selection  is  David's  fa- 
mous lament  over  the  death  of  Saul  and  Jonathan,  "  lovely  and 
pleasant  in  their  lives  and  in  their  death  not  divided."  Certain 
sources  of  the  Boo^s  of  the  Kings  are  mentioned  in  that  work: 
The  Boo^  of  the  Acts  of  Solomon;  25  The  Chronicles  of  the  Kings 
of  Judah;  2Q  and  The  Chronicles  of  the  Kings  of  Israel27  We 
mention  these  literary  matters  in  order  to  enhance  the  realism  of 
the  Bible,  a  sacred  work  so  detached  from  the  afiairs  of  earth  that 
few  there  are  who  make  a  study  of  its  sources  and  general  char- 
acteristics. 

The  establishment  of  the  Kingdom  of  Israel,  which  in  the  days 
of  Abraham  and  Moses  had  been  a  "  kingdom  not  of  this  world," 
may  have  been  a  false  step  for  the  Hebrews.  In  its  unity,  it 
lasted  but  a  century;  its  disruption  was  violent,  and  the  two  petty 
principalities  that  resulted  ended  in  captivity.  However,  there 
was  a  popular  demand  for  such  political  organization;  its  first 
king,  Saul,  seemed  available;  and  there  was  the  need  of  defense 
against  the  rival  government  of  Philistia  in  the  south.  These 
Philistines  in  the  book  of  Genesis  are  identified  as  the  natives  of 
Caphtor,  which  may  be  the  island  of  Crete,  spoken  of  as  "  the 
isle."  They  remained  in  Palestine  until  the  sixth  century  B.C.  It 
was  the  task  of  Saul  to  relieve  Israel  of  their  oppression.  He 
seems  to  have  been  chosen  on  a  physical  basis,  for  "from  his 
shoulders  and  upward  he  was  higher  than  any  of  the  people."  28 
He  was  selected  by  Samuel  while  he  was  seeking  the  asses  that 
had  strayed  from  the  fold,  a  historical  item  which  prompted 
Goethe  to  say,  "  Go  forth  searching  for  the  meanest  of  thy  fa- 
ther's goods  and  a  kingdom  shall  be  brought  thee." 

The  monarchical  and  military  career  of  this  easy-going  leader 
of  Israel  is  summed  up  in  a  single  verse  of  the  record:  "  So  Saul 
took  the  kingdom  over  Israel  and  fought  against  all  his  enemies 


23  II  Sam.  VIII,  16-17.         2B  J  K**g*  %*>  4*.  27  7  &*&  XV*  3*- 

24  II  Sam.  I,  17-27.  26  /  Kingt  XV,  23.         28  /  Sam.  IX,  X 


112 


HEBREW  RELIGION 


on  every  side;  against  Moab,  and  against  the  children  of  Ammon, 
and  against  Edom  and  against  the  kings  of  Zobah,  and  against 
the  Philistines;  and  whithersoever  he  turned  himself  he  vexed 
them."  29  But  an  act  of  disobedience  to  the  command  of  God  as 
given  by  the  seer  Samuel,  who  acted  as  a  sort  of  Secretary  of  State 
in  the  kingdom,  caused  Saul  to  be  practically  deposed  and 
brought  about  the  anointing  of  David  in  his  stead.  Apparently 
Saul  did  not  have  a  sound  mind  in  a  sound  body.  He  was  subject 
to  fits  of  madness  and  somewhat  given  to  sorcery;  he  finally  com- 
mitted suicide.  He  is  pictured  as  chieftain  in  his  camp  rather 
than  king  upon  a  throne.  "  Now  Saul  abode  in  Gibeah  under  a 
tree  in  Ramah,  having  his  spear  in  his  hand,  and  all  his  servants 
were  standing  about  him."  so 

THE  KINGDOM  OF  DAVID 

The  history  of  King  David  is  comparatively  voluminous.  The 
writer  of  I  Samuel  weaves  it  into  the  life  of  Saul  and  devotes 
all  of  //  Samuel  to  it.  The  reign  of  this  dashing  monarch  con- 
stituted the  great  glory  of  Israel  He  had  all  the  military  ability 
of  Saul,  something  like  Moses'  capacity  for  political  leadership, 
and  to  some  degree  the  religious  fervor  of  Samuel.  His  weak- 
ness lay  in  his  emotionalism.  A  spirit  of  romance  accompanied 
his  entire  career,  so  that,  as  we  cannot  think  of  Solomon  as  ever 
having  been  young,  we  cannot  think  of  David  as  ever  growing 
old.  The  biography  of  David  is  well  known  and  need  not  be 
dwelt  upon,  although  we  cannot,  like  H.  G.  Wells,  dismiss  it 
with  considerably  less  than  a  hundred  words  and  say  simply, 
"  His  story,  with  its  constant  assignations  and  executions,  reads 
rather  like  the  history  of  some  savage  chief  than  of  a  civilized 
monarch."  31 

What  King  David  did  for  the  history  of  Hebrew  civilization 
consisted  chiefly  in  taking  Jerusalem  and  making  it  ct  the  city  of 
the  Great  King,"  or  Jahweh.  This  new  Hebrew  capital  had  ever 
been  a  Canaanitish  fortress;  David  was  to  give  it  a  fame  equal  al- 
most to  that  of  Israel,  although  it  was  severely  criticized  by  the 
prophet  Ezekiel,  who  attributed  its  abominations  to  its  Canaanit- 

2fl  /  Sam.  XIV*  47.    so  /  Sam^  XXII,  6.     31  Outline  of  History,  Ch.  XIX,  I  X 


VO 
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DAVIDIC  LITERATURE  II3 

ish  origin.  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord  God  unto  Jerusalem:  Thy  birth 
and  thy  nativity  is  of  the  land  of  Canaan;  thy  father  was  an 
Amorite  and  thy  mother  an  Hittite."  S2  It  is  a  matter  o£  surprise 
that  the  taking  of  Jerusalem  is  not  reported  in  any  spectacular 
manner  but  is  noted  with  the  terseness  of  a  military  report. 
David  seems  to  have  overawed  the  Jebusites  who  dwelt  there  and, 
as  it  were,  walked  into  the  city.  "  The  inhabitants  of  Jebus  (Jeru- 
salem) said  to  David,  Thou  shalt  not  come  hither.  Nevertheless 
David  took  the  castle  of  Zion,  which  is  the  city  of  David." 33  Jeru- 
salem was  strategically  situated,  was  the  property  of  no  one  tribe, 
and  as  easy  to  defend  as  it  was  difficult  to  attack. 

David's  work  was  that  of  Hebrew  nationalization  and  to  the 
inner  unity  of  religion  he  added  an  outer  unity  of  politics.  To 
Jerusalem  he  brought  the  Mosaic  ark  of  the  covenant  that  the  su- 
perstitious Philistians,  having  taken  from  the  Israelites,  sent  back 
to  them.  He  had  Hiram,  king  of  Tyre,  build  him  a  royal  palace 
of  cedar  wood  and  stone.  After  this  exhibition  of  his  political 
spirit,  he  desired  to  express  his  religious  faith  by  building  a  tem- 
ple that  the  ark  of  the  Lord  might  be  housed  in  some  better  place 
than  a  tent,  but  his  prophet  Nathan  commands  him  to  leave  that 
work  to  his  successor.34  A  natural  leader  of  men,  David  organ- 
ized his  companions  and  captains  into  a  corps  of  lieutenants  called 
the  "  mighty  men,'*  among  them  those  who  had  been  wont  to 
gather  with  him  in  his  famous  Cave  of  Adullam*  The  organiza- 
tion of  the  capital  city  resulted  in  the  unification  of  the  whole 
nation. 

DAVIDIC  LITERATURE 

There  was  a  development  of  culture  as  well  as  civilization.  Up 
to  the  days  of  David,  Israel  had  practically  no  literature.  To  the 
Davidic  period  may  be  attributed  The  Blessings  of  Jacob,35  The 
Oracles  of  Balaam™  The  BooJ^  of  the  Wars  of  the  Lord?7  and 
The  BooJ^  of  Jasher?*  Then  there  is  The  Boo%  of  Psalms,  com- 
monly attributed  to  David,  but  his  authorship  of  them  as  a  whole 
is  a  literary  impossibility.  David  was  a  sweet  singer  and  devout 
worshiper  but  we  know  nothing  of  his  poetic  ability;  thus  we  are 

32  Ese\.  XVI,  3.         34  77  Sam.  VII.      3(5  Num.  XII-XIV.      3S  77  Sam.  I,  18. 

33  77  Sam.  V,  6-7.      35  Gen.  XL.          37  Num.  XXI,  14. 

S.T.— - Q 


II4  HEBREW  RELIGION 

inclined  to  think  of  the  Psalms  as  Davidic  in  the  way  that  we 
consider  the  plays  of  Shakespeare  Elizabethan.  The  conduct  of 
David,  when  he  was  at  his  worst,  is  condemned  by  us,  but  so  was 
it  condemned  by  his  people.  The  acts  of  this  man  seem  to  have 
received  special  literary  treatment  in  The  Boo{  of  Samuel  the 
Seer,  The  Boo{  of  Nathan  the  Prophet,  and  The  Boo{  of  Gad 
the  Seer.39  From  all  the  records  of  his  reign,  we  gather  that 
David  extended  the  Hebrew  realm,  built  a  national  capitol,  or- 
ganized his  people,  and  gave  them  both  a  national  consciousness 
and  a  presentiment  of  their  future.  David's  origin  was  humble 
and  of  him  it  was  said,  "  Thee  took  I  from  the  sheep  cote  and 
following  the  flock;  "  none  the  less  was  the  Kingdom  of  Israel  the 
kingdom  of  David,  a  throne  established  forever. 

The  history  of  King  Solomon  does  not  occupy  half  so  much 
space  as  that  of  his  father  David  in  the  Boo\s  of  the  Kings,  but 
the  biography  is  colorful,  the  events  recorded  magnificent,  and 
the  tone  eulogistic.  Solomon  was  the  child  of  Bathsheba,  widow 
of  Uriah  the  Hittite,  whose  first  child  had  died  so  pathetically.40 
It  was  this  tragic  woman  who  placed  Solomon  upon  the  throne 
of  David.  Solomon  reveals  the  glory  of  Israel  and  the  decline  of 
Egypt  by  marrying  Pharaoh's  daughter,  and  it  was  his  many 
marriages  with  foreign  women  who  brought  their  idolatries  into 
his  court,  the  worship  of  Astarte  and  Moloch,  for  example,  that 
was  his  ultimate  undoing.  It  was  this,  in  the  hands  of  Jero- 
boam, a  son  of  one  of  his  servants,  that  finally  split  the  great- 
kingdom. 

The  kingdom  of  this  petty  Oriental  was  reputed  to  extend  from 
the  river  Euphrates  to  the  border  of  Egypt.  Its  subjects  were  many 
as  the  sand  of  the  sea  and  in  their  royal  revelry  they  were  found 
"  eating  and  drinking  and  making  merry,"  every  one  dwelling 
safely  under  his  vine  and  his  fig  tree.41  The  description  of  the 
menage  in  the  monarch's  household  is  quite  impressive.  The 
provisions  for  a  single  day  were  thirty  measures  of  fine  flour  and 
sixty  measures  of  meal;  ten  fat  oxen  and  twenty  oxen  out  of  the 
pasture,  a  hundred  sheep,  besides  harts,  roebucks,  fallow  deer, 
and  fatted  fowl.  In  his  royal  entourage,  Solomon  had  forty  thou- 
sand stalls  for  the  horses  of  his  chariots  and  twelve  thousand 

*9  /  Chron.  XXIX,  29.       40  //  Sam.  XII,  15  et  seq.      41  /  Kings  IV,  20. 


SOLOMON'S  TEMPLE  II5 

horsemen.    These  with  their  dromedaries  were  well  supplied 
with  food,  there  being  plenty  of  barley  and  straw  for  the  beasts. 

Along  with  this  largess  on  the  part  of  Solomon,  there  seems  to 
have  been  breadth  of  vision  whereby  Solomon's  wisdom  has  be- 
come a  byword.  In  his  own  day,  it  was  reputed  to  be  superior  to 
the  wisdom  of  all  Egypt.  This  reputation  seems  to  have  been 
based  upon  the  story  of  Solomon's  judgment  in  deciding  the  ma- 
ternity of  the  child  which  the  two  harlots  contended  for;  but  it 
would  seem  as  though  the  instinct  of  the  woman,  the  rightful 
mother,  who  was  willing  to  relinquish  her  child  in  order  to  save 
its  life,  was  more  wonderful  than  the  intelligence  of  the  man  who 
settled  the  question  of  its  maternity.  However,  to  this  king  are 
reputed  some  three  thousand  proverbs  and  more  than  a  thousand 
songs.  Solomon  enjoyed  some  sort  of  scientific  reputation  also, 
because  of  his  knowledge  of  the  flora  and  fauna  about  him,  the 
trees  and  plants,  the  beasts  and  fowl,  the  fishes  and  creeping 
things.42  Doubtless  these  descriptions  are  more  adulatory  than 
authentic. 

SOLOMON'S  TEMPLE 

It  will  be  recalled  that  David,  upon  taking  Jerusalem,  desired 
to  build  a  temple  but  was  restrained  therefrom  by  the  prophet 
Nathan.  Solomon's  architectural  enterprise  was  elaborate.  He 
built  The  House  of  the  Forest  of  Lebanon,  to  which  was  attached 
his  Porch  of  Judgment;  a  house  for  Pharaoh's  daughter,  a  build- 
ing resplendent  in  costly  stone  and  polished  cedar;  his  own  resi- 
dence, which  required  thirteen  years  to  build;  and  last,  if  not 
really  least  of  all,  the  Temple.  In  building  the  Temple,  Solomon 
availed  himself  of  his  father's  acquaintance  with  King  Hiram  of 
Tyre,  who  seems  to  have  been  an  expert  builder,  or,  at  any  rate, 
"  a  man  filled  with  wisdom  and  understanding  and  cunning  to 
work  all  works  in  brass."  The  Biblical  description  of  the  Temple 
with  its  great  variety  of  building  materials  of  wood,  stone,  metal, 
jewels,  and  the  like  is  impressive.  The  building  itself,  a  rec- 
tangular walled  structure  124  feet  long,  55  feet  wide,  and  52  feet 
high,  was  no  Pyramid  or  Taj  Mahal  or  Cathedral  at  Cologne. 
Indeed  it  was  somewhat  smaller  than  Solomon's  own  house;  but 

42  1  Kings  IV. 


ZI6  HEBREW  RELIGION 

then,  it  was  not  supposed  to  be  a  place  of  public  worship,  but  a 
private  dwelling  place  for  Jahweh,  or  a  mere  symbol  of  his 
earthly  presence.  The  old  Hebrew  sense  of  God's  sublimity  was 
voiced  by  Solomon  when  he  said,  "  But  will  God  indeed  dwell 
on  the  earth?  Behold  the  heaven  and  the  heaven  of  heavens 
cannot  contain  Thee,  how  much  less  this  house  that  I  have 
builded?"43 

The  secular  activities  of  Solomon  were  no  less  spectacular. 
They  included  the  building  of  cities  like  Hazor,  Megiddo,  and 
Gezer;  the  development  of  commerce  in  spices  and  ivory,  gold 
and  silver,  horses  and  mules,  apes  and  peacocks.  Solomon  built 
up  a  navy  also,  the  famous  ships  of  Tarshish,  which  were  manned 
by  King  Hiram's  sailors.  All  of  this  splendor  was  costly  and  in- 
volved severe  taxation  and  enforced  labor,  and  it  was  this  after- 
wards which  was  referred  to  as  the  "  grievous  yoke  "  that  King 
Solomon  had  placed  upon  his  people.  His  son  and  successor, 
Rehoboam,  promised  to  be  even  more  tyrannical,  whereupon,  in 
937  B.C.,  the  ten  tribes  in  the  northern  and  central  portion  of  Pal- 
estine formed  a  new  kingdom  under  Jeroboam,  who  had  been  in 
Egypt  waiting  for  just  this  opportunity,  while  the  southern  tribes 
of  Judah  and  Simeon  maintained  the  old  order  and  formed  the 
Kingdom  of  Judah.  The  northern  Kingdom  of  Israel  lasted 
until  722  B.C.,  when  it  was  taken  by  Sargon  of  Assyria,  after 
which  its  ten  tribes  were  lost  to  view  in  the  history  of  the  world. 
The  Kingdom  of  Judah  lasted  more  than  a  century  longer  proba- 
bly because  it  maintained  an  unbroken  dynasty,  had  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  Temple  and  the  influence  of  Jerusalem,  was  compara- 
tively small,  and  followed  a  conservative  policy.  But  Judah  also 
was  fated  for  a  foreign  yoke;  its  complete  captivity  by  Babylon 
and  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  occurred  in  586  B.C. 

BABYLONIAN  EXILE 

The  history  of  the  Hebrews  from  that  time  on  was  marked  by 

subjugation  to  four  foreign  yokes,  Babylonian   and  Persian, 

Greek  and  Roman,  two  of  them  oriental  and  two  occidental. 

The  seventy  years  of  Babylonian  Exile  changed  these  Biblical 

43  /  Kings  VIII,  27. 


THE  END  OF  JEWISH  NATIONALISM        II7 

people  from  "  Hebrews  " 44  into  "  Jews." 45  That  is,  from  being 
provincial  they  became  cosmopolitan,  exchanged  agricultural 
practices  for  commercial  pursuits  in  what  the  prophet  Ezekiel 
called  "  a  land  of  traffic  and  a  city  o£  merchants,"  and  developed 
their  patriotico-religious  literature.  The  Jews,  as  they  were  com- 
ing to  be  called,  became  a  literary  people,  and  it  was  during  the 
period  of  the  Exile  that  the  Deuteronomic  School  of  writers  col- 
lected, edited,  and  extended  the  traditional  records  of  their  race 
and  formed  a  history  of  the  Hebrew  people. 

The  beginnings  of  Aryan  domination  in  Syria  and  Palestine, 
which  was  to  continue  for  a  thousand  years  between  Cyrus  and 
Mahomet,  occurred  in  539  B.C.  when  Cyrus  swept  serenely  into 
the  city  of  Babylon.  The  diplomacy  of  this  Persian  is  as  famous 
as  his  military  ability;  it  showed  itself  in  the  way  he  allowed  the 
Jews  to  return  to  Judea  and  the  decree  he  made  concerning  the 
rebuilding  of  the  temple  at  Jerusalem.46  Some  forty  thousand 
Jews,  or  less,  responded  to  this  royal  invitation  to  return,  but  it  is 
obvious  that  in  the  minds  of  the  people  generally  the  physical 
Jerusalem  was  little  in  comparison  with  the  spiritual  Zion.  How- 
ever, a  second  temple  was  dedicated  in  516  B.C.,  social  reforms 
were  carried  out,  and  in  400  B.C.  a  new  law  promulgated  by  Ezra 
was  adopted.  This  stressed  the  letter  rather  than  the  spirit  of  the 
law,  was  more  ceremonial  than  prophetic,  and  made  the  Jewish 
people  a  nation  of  the  book.  It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  it 
was  under  the  auspices  of  Babylonian  and  Persian  domination 
that  the  Jews  came  into  their  own  spiritual  heritage  and  became 
Jews  indeed.  When  Grecian  domination  succeeded  that  of  the 
Persians,  a  new  phase  of  Jewish  culture  developed. 

THE  END  OF  JEWISH  NATIONALISM 

The  Grecian  domination  of  the  Jewish  people  was  but  a  small 
part  of  Alexander  the  Great's  conquest  of  Asia  and  the  develop- 
ment of  Hellenism.  The  military  ability  and  political  skill  of 
Alexander  are  well-known  facts  of  general  history;  his  relations 
to  the  Jews  are  more  obscure.  Alexander  made  a  tremendous  im- 

44  Gen.  X,  21 ;  XIV,  13.  46  Ezra  VI,  1-5. 

45  Ezra  IV,  12;  11  Kings  XVI,  6. 


Ijg  HEBREW  RELIGION 

pression  upon  the  Jewish  mind.  The  prophet  Daniel  likened 
him  to  a  he-goat,  "  a  notable  horn  between  his  two  eyes,"  bound- 
ing out  of  the  west;  "  and  the  rough  goat,"  said  he,  "  is  the  king 
of  Grecia  and  the  great  horn  that  is  between  his  eyes  is  the  first 
king."  47  The  conquests  of  Alexander  do  not  specially  concern 
us,  since  we  are  interested  in  observing  the  culmination  of  the 
Jewish  idea  as,  in  the  following  chapter,  we  shall  note  the  devel- 
opment of  the  Grecian  one.  What  Alexander  means  for  us  here 
is  "  Alexandria." 

The  actual  founding  of  Alexandria  resulted  in  a  meeting  place 
and  common  ground  for  Hellenism  and  Hebraism;  out  of  this 
synthesis  grew  something  that  is  called  "  Hellenistic,"  a  Graeco- 
Jewish  product.  Outwardly,  this  union  was  signalized  by  the 
translation  of  the  Old  Testament  into  Greek,  a  long  process  which 
began  in  the  year  250  B.C.  This  was  the  version  made  by  "  The 
Seventy,"  or  The  Seftuagent,  often  indicated  as  LXX.  Inwardly, 
the  Alexandrian  movement,  which  engendered  Hellenistic  cul- 
ture, was  brought  about  by  contrary  ideals  and  yet  complemen- 
tary aims  on  the  part  of  Greek  and  Jew  alike.  The  Greeks  had 
ever  attributed  the  existence  and  behavior  of  things  to  the  inher- 
ent power  of  nature;  the  Jews,  to  the  will  of  God.  In  parallel 
manner,  the  Greek  moralist  had  ascribed  goodness  to  that  which 
is  according  to  nature,  while  the  Jew  defined  goodness  in  terms 
of  obedience  to  the  Divine  Will.  This  produced  the  peculiar 
phenomena  of  Hebraizing  Greeks  and  Hellenizing  Jews;  it 
amounted  to  little  more  than  a  tolerant  tone  and  a  common  de- 
sire to  discover  an  adequate  philosophy  of  life.  This  was  to  ap- 
pear not  much  later  in  Christianity,  a  Hebraic  belief  which  as- 
sumed a  Hellenistic  form,  an  eastern  religion  which  had  its 
success  in  the  western  world. 

HEBREW  CULTURE 

The  inner  history  of  the  Hebrew  people,  their  culture,  is  re- 
flected in  their  literature,  in  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament. 
We  are  quite  correct  in  referring  to  these  works  of  history,  poetry, 
philosophy,  and  prophecy  as  religious  literature,  but  they  are  not 

47  Dan.  VIII,  21. 


THE  PROPHETS  AND  THE  LAW      II9 

that  alone.  In  addition  to  fairly  sedate  historical  narratives  such 
as  we  find  in  the  books  of  the  kings,  /  and  11  Samuel,  I  and  // 
Kings,  we  find  myths  and  legends,  folk  lore  and  folk  songs, 
songs,  riddles,  fables,  and  even  puns.  In  the  books  of  Ruth  and 
Esther  we  observe  something  not  wholly  unlike  the  modern  short 
story.  Job  is  a  kind  of  drama  somewhat  akin  in  tone  to  the  plays 
of  Aeschylus;  the  book  of  Jonah  is  an  allegory  and  Isaiah's  Vine- 
yard Song,  beginning  "  Now  will  I  sing  to  my  well-beloved  a 
song  of  my  beloved  touching  his  vineyard,"  is  a  parable  sugges- 
tive of  the  Parable  of  the  Vineyard  in  the  Gospels.  Although  the 
Hebrew  mind  was  conscious  of  a  religious  destiny,  it  did  not  feel 
it  necessary  to  express  this  in  a  purely  theological  manner,  hence 
the  Hebrew  writer  proceeded  pretty  much  in  the  style  of  his 
contemporaries  in  other  lands. 

In  the  case  of  the  books  of  Moses,  the  Pentateuch,  the  literary 
situation  was  not  at  all  unusual  at  such  a  period  in  history.  It 
is  only  because  our  way  of  writing  is  so  different  that  the  problem 
of  the  Pentateuch  arose.  What  we  expect  to  find  is  a  single  nar- 
rative from  the  pen  of  one  man;  what  we  do  find  even  after  only 
superficial  reading  is  a  collection  of  documents  written  at  differ- 
ent times  and  places  by  different  men.  In  the  instance  of  the  four 
Gospels,  our  problem  is  to  put  the  narratives  together  in  the  form 
of  a  harmonious  account  of  Christ's  life.  In  the  case  of  the  first 
five,  or  indeed,  six  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  our  problem  is 
to  detach  the  documents  made  by  four  or  five  unknown  writers 
whose  accounts  were  woven  into  the  Pentateuch  or  the  Hexa- 
teuch.  Once  we  have  done  that,  the  duplications  and  variations 
which  we  encounter  will  become  quite  intelligible. 

THE  PROPHETS  AND  THE  LAW 

In  order  to  comprehend  the  development  of  Hebrew  literature, 
we  must  all  but  reverse  the  order  in  which  the  books  are  now 
found  in  the  Old  Testament.  Then  the  arrangement  will  be:  the 
Prophets,  the  Law,  the  Psalms.  Apart  from  fragments  of  history, 
to  which  we  have  already  referred,  the  works  of  the  prophets 
were  the  first  to  be  written.  We  find  it  difficult  to  think  of  them 
as  growing  out  of  the  Law,  as  though  it  could  have  been  their 


I20  HEBREW  RELIGION 

Alma  Mater,  but  find  it  comparatively  easy  to  consider  them  as 
giving  immediate  expression  to  the  religious  intuitions  which 
were  growing  up  among  the  people.  Their  attitude  toward  the 
Law  was  one  of  antipathy,  as  we  observe  in  such  minor  prophets 
as  Amos  and  Micah,  such  major  ones  as  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah. 
The  discovery  of  the  different  documents  ensconced  in  the  Hexa- 
teuch  was  made  originally,  in  the  middle  of  the  XVIIIth  century, 
upon  the  basis  of  the  different  names  for  the  Divine  Being,  who 
here  is  called  "  Elohim,"  there  "  Jahweh  "  But  this  distinction 
between  an  Elohistic  and  a  Jahvistic  writer  was  observed  to  hold 
for  practically  no  book  but  that  of  Genesis,  just  as  it  was  noted 
that  there  are  evidences  of  other  writers;  hence,  in  extending  the 
critical  view  beyond  the  6th  chapter  of  Exodus,  it  became  neces- 
sary to  recognize  the  presence  of  other  scribes.  The  result  is  that 
an  inner  unity  of  spirit  has  taken  the  place  of  the  outer  and  older 
unity  of  form. 

The  writers  of  the  first  six  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  the 
Hexateuch,  are  known  as  J,  the  Judaistic  writer  of  the  ninth  cen- 
tury; E,  an  Ephraemitic  author  of  the  eighth  century;  D,  the  sup- 
posed author  of  the  book  of  Deuteronomy,  which  was  found  in 
Judah  in  the  year  621  B.C.;  P,  the  priestly  writer  in  the  period  of 
the  Exile.  A  redacteur,  or  editor  known  as  R,  is  sometimes  re- 
ferred to  by  the  Biblical  scholar.  The  documents  we  know  as 
J,  E,  and  D  were  probably  combined  during  the  Exile,  when  the 
document  known  as  P  was  written  and  woven  into  the  record. 
Such  a  composite  conception  of  the  Hexateuch  will  serve  to 
account  for  the  combination  of  cosmological  theory,  naive  narra- 
tive, bits  of  folk  lore,  songs,  ritualistic  regulations,  prophetic 
utterances,  and  chapters  of  religious  instruction.  A  fuller  descrip- 
tion of  J,  E,  D,  and  P  will  help  to  explain  and  enforce  this  theory 
of  Biblical  criticism. 

The  document  called  J,  written  by  a  Judean  prophet  in  the 
ninth  century  B.C.,  begins  with  the  second  story  of  Creation  given 
in  the  2d  chapter  of  Genesis  and  continues  with  the  history 
of  the  Hebrew  people  to  the  accession  of  King  Solomon.  The 
second  document  used  in  the  compilation,  E,  is  of  northern  ori- 
gin. It  begins  with  the  account  of  Abraham  and  tells  the  story 
of  Israel  in  the  form  of  biography,  tradition,  and  custom.  Docu- 


THE  PROPHETS  AND  THE  LAW      I2J 

ments  ]  and  E  were  probably  combined  in  the  seventh  century 
B.C.  The  D  document  of  the  book  of  Deuteronomy  is  more 
didactic  than  historical,  reflects  the  spirit  of  the  prophets,  and  con- 
tends for  monotheism  in  opposition  to  the  idolatry  that  had 
grown  up  through  contact  with  the  Canaanitish  natives.  To  the 
priestly  writer  of  the  Exile,  P,  we  are  indebted  for  the  original  ac- 
count of  Creation  and  the  ceremonial  ideas  found  in  Leviticus, 
as  also  in  Exodus  and  Numbers.  By  the  year  400  B.C.,  the  histori- 
cal books  up  to  II  Kings  were  in  their  present  form.  The  Booths 
of  the  Chronicles^  a  repetition  of  the  four  Eoo\s  of  the  Kings, 
appeared  a  century  later.  The  Old  Testament  was  in  something 
like  its  present  form  by  the  year  100  B.C.,  although  the  complete 
canon  including  The  Song  of  Solomon,  Esther,  and  Ecclesiastes 
was  not  formed  until  the  time  of  the  Council  of  Jamnia  in  90  A.D. 

It  was  the  destruction  of  the  capitol  at  Jerusalem  and  the  period 
of  exile  in  Babylon  that  brought  out  the  literary  gifts  of  the  He- 
brew people.  The  Babylonians  made  much  of  the  art  of  writing 
and  the  development  of  literature,  so  that  they  afforded  the 
Hebrews  a  good  example  of  early  literary  art.  Moreover,  the 
detachment  from  their  own  land  and  freedom  from  political  re- 
sponsibility combined  to  enhance  a  Jewish  consciousness,  so  that 
it  was  natural  for  the  Jews  to  write  the  history  of  their  past  and 
further  consider  the  possibilities  of  their  own  national  culture. 

Our  subject  is  the  religion  of  the  Hebrews;  we  have  taken  it  up 
and  shall  proceed  to  Greek  intellectualism  and  Roman  imperial- 
ism for  the  purpose  of  discovering  the  several  strands  in  our  own 
civilization  and  culture.  We  have  now  to  make  an  analysis  of 
the  religious  ideas  and  intentions  of  the  ancient  Hebrews  as  these 
have  been  implied  by  their  history  and  literature.  The  Hebrews 
had  no  word  for  religion  and  it  is  only  in  their  late  literature  that 
we  find  the  term  "  worship."  But,  better  than  the  word,  they  had 
the  religious  sentiment;  this  they  expressed  in  simple  form  with- 
out mystical  complications.  Their  religion  thus  amounted  to 
theism  and  righteousness;  belief  in  God  and  the  moral  obliga- 
tions involved  therein.  The  monotheism  for  which  they  are 
famous  historically  was  not  achieved  until  the  days  of  the 
prophets;  it  did  not  become  universal  among  the  people  of  the 
nation  at  large  until  they  were  exiles  in  Babylon. 


I22  HEBREW  RELIGION 

THE  HEBREW  IDEA  OF  GOD 

The  God  of  the  Hebrews  was  revealed  to  them  in  both  outer 
nature  and  inner  consciousness.  They  sought  him  in  the  earth- 
quake and  fire  but  found  him  in  the  still  small  voice.  The 
Hebrews  were  far  from  avoiding  anthropomorphism;  they 
seemed  to  see  God  in  human  form  and  spoke  of  him  as  having 
human  characteristics,  as  hands  and  feet,  heart  and  eyes.  God 
seemed  to  be  in  sympathy  with  human  beings  and  their  experi- 
ences; hence,  when  Hezekiah,  king  of  Judah,  received  a  threaten- 
ing letter  from  Sennacherib,  the  Assyrian,  he  spread  it  before  the 
Lord.48  Yet  even  in  the  earlier  history  of  this  people,  their  Deity 
was  thought  of  in  a  superior  manner,  as  when  it  was  said  in 
Genesis,  "  My  spirit  shall  not  always  strive  with  man."  49  For  the 
most  part  the  Hebrew  mind  was  so  lacking  in  metaphysical  ideas 
and  so  intent  upon  ideals,  that  their  anthropomorphism  is  not  in- 
clined to  offend  us. 

Before  the  days  of  the  prophets  and  the  spiritual  cleansing 
which  the  Kingdom  of  Judah  received  in  the  Babylonian  Cap- 
tivity, Hebrew  religion  was  inclined  to  be  racial  and  local.  The 
idea  of  God  was  that  of  henotheism  rather  than  monotheism;  the 
notion  that  there  is  one  God  for  each  nation,  not  that  God  is  an 
only  God.  Examples  of  this  very  restricted  monotheism  or  heno- 
theism are  found  among  the  early  kings  and  early  prophets. 
When  David  was  driven  out  of  the  kingdom  by  the  jealous  wrath 
of  Saul,  he  protested  against  his  enemies,  saying,  "  For  they  have 
driven  me  out  this  day  from  abiding  in  the  inheritance  of  the 
Lord  (Jahweh)  saying,  Go,  serve  other  gods." 50  When  Elisha 
the  prophet  healed  Naaman  the  Syrian  of  his  leprosy,  Naaman 
requested  that  "  two  mules'  burden  of  earth  "  be  given  to  him 
to  take  back  to  his  own  country  so  that  he  might  worship  the 
God  whose  prophet  had  healed  him.51  Even  The  Boo}^  of  Ruth, 
written  after  the  Exile,  though  indeed  depicting  an  earlier 
scene,  suggests  that  the  heroine  in  going  from  Moab  to  Israel 
must  adopt  a  new  deity,  hence  the  words,  "  Thy  people  shall 
be  my  people,  and  thy  God  my  God."  It  was  the  prophets 

48  //  Kings  XIX,  14.  50  /  Sam.  XXVI,  19. 

49  Gen.  VI,  3.    The  J  document.  51  //  Kings  V,  17. 


HEBREW  CONCEPTION  OF  RELIGION       T92 

1Z5 

who  spoke  of  God  as  the  Lord  of  the  whole  earth  who  had  a 
world-wide  purpose. 

HEBREW  CONCEPTION  OF  RELIGION 

In  addition  to  this  metaphysical  purification  of  Hebrew  wor- 
ship, the  prophets  placed  religion  upon  an  ethical  basis.  They 
did  this  socially  when  they  extended  the  dominion  of  Jahweh  to 
other  nations  than  Israel.  In  this  latitudinarian  spirit,  Amos, 
whose  prophecy  was  the  first  book  of  the  Bible  to  be  written,  tells 
the  people  that,  if  Jahweh  had  brought  them  out  of  the  land  of 
Egypt,  he  had  brought  the  Philistines  from  Caphtor  and  the 
Syrians  from  Kir.  From  this  liberal  point  of  view,  the  compla- 
cent Israelites  were  no  more  to  their  God  than  were  the  children 
of  the  Ethiopians.52  This  rural  prophet  claimed  that  the  sacri- 
ficial system  was  not  of  primitive  origin,  but  the  artificial  growth 
of  later  times.  "  Have  ye  offered  unto  me  sacrifices  and  offerings 
in  the  wilderness  forty  years,  O  house  of  Israel?  " 53  At  a  later 
date,  the  prophet  Jeremiah  put  this  extraordinary  matter  even 
more  strongly,  insisting  that  Jahweh  was  a  God  of  righteousness 
who  demanded  righteousness  from  his  people. 

The  transmutation  of  religious  worship  from  the  ceremonial  to 
the  moral  was  conducted  primarily  by  Amos  and  Micah,  Isaiah 
and  Jeremiah.  Amos  attacked  the  social  injustice  of  his  day 
when  "  they  sold  the  righteous  for  silver  and  the  poor  for  a  pair 
of  shoes  "  and  represents  Jahweh  as  saying,  "  I  hate,  I  despise 
your  feast  days  .  .  .  Though  ye  offer  me  burnt  offerings  and 
meat  offerings,  I  will  not  accept  them  ,  .  .  But  let  judgment  run 
down  as  waters  and  righteousness  as  a  mighty  stream."  54  In  a 
similar  tone  of  ethical  idealism,  the  prophet  Micah  condemned 
the  sacrificial  system  and  asserted  that  Jahweh  required  the  wor- 
shiper only  "  to  do  justly  and  to  love  mercy  and  to  walk  hum- 
bly." 55  The  first  Isaiah  was  no  less  emphatic  in  his  denunciation 
of  ceremonialism  with  its  celebration  of  new  moons  and  sabbaths, 
no  less  enthusiastic  in  the  humanitarianism  of  relieving  the  op- 
pressed, judging  the  fatherless,  and  pleading  for  the  widow.58 

52  Amos  IX,  7.  55  Micah  VI,  8. 

53  Amos  V,  25.  C6  Is.  I,  10-17. 

54  Amos  V,  21-24. 


HEBREW  RELIGION 

Indeed,  with  the  prophets  generally  there  is  the  manifest  desire  to 
translate  racial  custom  into  ethical  behavior,  and  ceremonial 
practice  into  moral  procedure. 

In  brief,  the  religion  of  the  Hebrews  resulted  in  developing  a 
conception  of  God  which  was  personal  but  not  anthropomorphic; 
of  a  deity  whose  will,  while  supreme,  was  not  arbitrary  but  ethical 
in  character.  The  notion  of  goodness  that  followed  from  the  He- 
brew conception  of  life  was  not  based  upon  anything  like  the  self- 
sufficient  virtue  of  the  Stoics  or  the  autonomous  sense  of  rectitude 
peculiar  to  Kant.  The  Hebrew  conception  of  righteousness,  while 
not  utilitarian,  did  not  overlook  the  purposive  character  of  the 
ethical  or  the  inherent  value  of  morality.  The  Hebrew  faith  be- 
longs to  the  class  of  morality-religions  rather  than  to  that  of 
redemptive  religions;  it  is  much  more  like  Confucianism  than 
Buddhism.  Its  ideal  is  the  sanctification  of  life  in  the  world 
rather  than  the  salvation  of  the  soul  from  the  world.  It  aimed  at 
perfection,  to  use  an  ambitious  term,  in  the  realization  of  life  on 
earth.  But  while  this  significant  branch  of  the  Semitic  family 
of  races  had  been  at  work  upon  its  ideal,  the  Aryans  had  not 
neglected  the  problem  of  life,  for  they  also  had  their  civilization, 
which  was  much  more  impressive  than  that  of  the  Hebrews. 
Suppose,  then,  we  turn  to  the  Hellenes. 


CHAPTER  VI 
GREEK  CULTURE 


GREEK  AND  HEBREW 

THE  FUSION  OF  HEBRAIC  AND  HELLENIC  CULTURES  IN  PRE- 
Christian  Alexandria  was  an  indication  that  two  forms 
of  spiritual  life  might  be  made  one.  But  the  relation  of 
Hebrew  to  Greek  in  the  development  of  Christianity  was  far 
from  being  such  a  mystical  blending.  It  was  indeed  a  relation 
and  one  in  which  the  Semitic  and  Aryan  strands  could  ever  be 
discerned.  Having  observed  in  the  history  of  Hebrew  religion 
the  leading  traits  of  that  culture,  we  must  attempt  a  different  and 
more  difficult  task  —  the  analysis  of  the  Greek  mind,  a  descrip- 
tion of  its  unique  culture,  and  the  manifold  ramifications  that 
it  assumed.  Most  of  us  know  Greece,  its  language  and  literature, 
religion  and  philosophy  in  only  a  desultory  way,  since  Greek 
classics  are  no  longer  pursued  with  the  academic  rigor  known  to 
our  fathers.  We  entertain  the  Hellenic  ideal  in  about  the  man- 
ner that  we  consider  a  Greek  statue,  whose  cool  perfection  and 
lack  of  realism  make  its  creator  seem  a  being  apart  from  the 
practical  world  in  which  we  live.  For  this  reason,  or  as  a  coun- 
terpoise to  the  popularly  classic  conception,  we  must  consider  the 
ancient  Greek  in  a  manner  as  naturalistic  and  modern  as  the  facts 
will  permit  and  our  imagination  allow. 

Our  conception  of  Greek  culture,  apart  from  what  we  our- 
selves have  found  in  the  classics,  has  been  shaped  by  French 
neo-Classicism,  the  Germanic  Greekdom  of  Lessing  and  Winckel- 
man,  Goethe  and  Schiller,  and  the  Victorian  Hellenism  repre- 
sented by  Matthew  Arnold.  Many  of  us  are  inclined  to  adopt 
Arnold's  clever  contrast  between  Hebraism  and  Hellenism  as  if 
indeed  it  had  been  little  more  than  "  strictness  of  conscience  "  and 
"  spontaneity  of  consciousness.5*  x  But  these  classic  conceptions 
of  Classicism  overlook  the  many-sidedness  and  modernness  of 
the  ancient  Hellene  and  what  might  be  called  the  classic  form 

1  Culture  and  .Anarchy  >  Ch.  IV. 


I25  GREEK  CULTURE 

of  the  modern  Greek  mind.  Thus  we  tend  to  overestimate  the 
merits  of  the  ancient  Greek  and  underestimate  those  of  the  mod- 
ern one.  The  popular  mind  does  not  realize  that  modern  literary 
Greek  more  closely  resembles  the  Periclean  tongue  than  does  our 
English  that  of  Chaucer's  time.  Scholars,  who  lay  weight  upon 
the  infusion  of  Albanian,  Slavonic,  and  other  bloods  into  the 
Greek  race,  apply  their  conceptions  of  the  modern  Greeks  to  the 
inhabitants  of  the  islands  as  well  as  those  of  the  Balkan  peninsula. 
Thus  they  fail  to  observe  that  in  temperament  the  new  Greek 
closely  resembles  his  courteous,  curious,  credulous,  and  hospitable 
forebears  whom  Homer  and  Aristophanes  described  so  graphi- 
cally. They  do  not  take  into  account  the  fact  that  the  folk  lore  of 
the  modern  Greek  peasant  preserves  not  only  the  essential  struc- 
ture of  Greek  mythology,  but  even  the  names  of  many  ancient 
deities. 

THE  CLASSIC  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  GREEKS 

Those  who  are  enthusiastic  about  Greek  culture  are  apt  to 
think  of  the  Hellenes  as  a  special  class  of  human  beings  who,  clad 
in  white,  passed  their  lives  in  calm  devotion  to  the  arts  and  sci- 
ences, or  who,  in  lighter  moments,  bounded  from  the  heights  of 
Parnassus  to  the  slopes  of  Parnes  and  back  again  while  they  kept 
crying  out,  "  Know  thyself  "  and  "  Nothing  in  excess."  These 
popular  classicists  think  of  the  Greeks  as  forever  young,  optimis- 
tic and  intellectual,  and  believe  further  that  in  their  city-state 
they  achieved  a  harmonious  existence  marred  by  neither  indul- 
gence nor  asceticism.  Others,  thinking  no  doubt  of  the  later 
Greeks,  consider  them  as  joyous  in  the  days  of  their  youth  only 
and  as  pessimistic  in  their  mature  view  of  life  and  death.  In 
general,  the  intellectualism  of  the  Greeks  has  received  such  empha- 
sis that  they  are  looked  upon  as  men  who,  in  their  "  spontaneity 
of  consciousness,'*  had  much  less  regard  for  any  "strictness 
of  conscience,"  for  they  were,  it  seems  to  some,  as  irrespon- 
sible as  they  were  intellectual.  To  the  moralist,  the  Greek  ap- 
peared to  be  lacking  in  ethical  earnestness,  zeal  for  social  reform, 
and  pity  for  the  helpless.  They  seemed,  further,  to  have  no  desire 
to  impart  to  others  the  way  of  life  they  had  discovered,  but  were 


VERSATILITY  OF  GREEK  GENIUS 

concerned  with  themselves  and  the  enjoyment  of  the  leisure 
afforded  them  by  the  labor  of  their  slaves. 

It  is  true  that,  by  a  limited  use  of  texts  drawn  from  a  certain 
type  of  writer,  even  one  of  the  golden  age  of  Greek  literature,  a 
fairly  good  case  can  be  made  out  for  an  almost  conventional  view 
of  the  ancient  Hellenes.  But  a  long  and  serious  study  of  the 
.Greeks  throughout  their  entire  history  reveals  in  the  Hellenic 
temperament  a  bewildering  array  of  contradictions.  There  is 
ample  proof  of  their  Hellenic  grace,  but  none  the  less  a  versa- 
tility, so  to  call  it,  which  Pericles  extolled  without  hinting  at  the 
serious  defects  of  character  to  which  unfortunately  it  led.2 

VERSATILITY  OF  GREEK  GENIUS 

Among  the  Hellenes  a  natural  bent  for  theoria,  the  calm,  scien- 
tific study  of  the  world  without  and  of  man  within,  was  offset 
by  various  types  of  ascetic  mysticism,  indeed  on  certain  levels  by 
the  lowest  forms  of  superstition  and  magic.  Independent  think- 
ing was  checked  at  times  by  the  most  intolerant  reverence  for 
custom  and  authority.  Hard-headed  realism  in  politics  was  tem- 
pered by  the  most  garrulous  credulity  and  open-mouthed  suscep- 
tibility to  the  flattery  of  demagogues.  Greed  for  wealth  clashed 
with  cultural  aims  and  was  roundly  criticized  by  literary  men. 
Moderation  was  in  general  the  keynote  of  the  best  Greek  life. 
Yet  we  find  cultured  Athenian  gentlemen  asked  to  decide  at  a 
banquet  whether  they  will  make  a  night  of  it  or  engage  in  serious 
philosophic  discussion.  And  the  philosophic  discussion  on  which 
they  decide  ends  with  at  least  two  of  the  guests  under  the  table.3 

The  Athenians  could  accept  untroubled  the  money  sweated  out 
by  slaves  in  the  silver  mines  of  Laureion;  they  could  unblush- 
ingly  torture  servants  as  a  prelude  to  getting  evidence  in  the  law- 
courts.  Yet  in  the  industrial  cities  such  as  Athens,  where  pros- 
perity stood  at  a  high  mark,  the  lines  of  caste  were  perfectly  fluid; 
so  far  as  freedom  of  speech  and  social  relations  were  concerned, 
though  not  in  the  business  of  politics,  there  was  a  notable  equality 
between  slaves,  foreigners,  and  citizens.  Only  in  agricultural 
communities  such  as  Thessaly  and  Sparta  did  one  find  an  ex- 

2  Thucydides  II,  41.  s  Plato,  Symposium. 


I2g  GREEK  CULTURE 

ploited  serf  class.  Finally,  there  Is  ample  evidence  in  the  activities 
of  various  mystic  cults,  of  Platonic  philosophers  descending  once 
more  into  the  dark  cave,  of  Stoics  and  Cynics  with  whom  phi- 
losophy took  to  the  road,  that  the  Greeks  were  solicitous  of  the 
welfare  of  the  oppressed,  that  they  were  not  without  a  desire  to 
impart  to  others  the  way  of  life  which  they  themselves  had  found 
best. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  the  Greeks  have  been  so  variously  inter- 
preted. They  had  contradictory  traits;  they  have  been  studied 
by  different  types  of  men.  One  generation  has  concentrated  its 
interest  on  Greek  religion  and  metaphysics;  another  has  gone 
to  Aristotle  as  to  the  father  of  scientific  research.  Through  Greek 
the  minds  of  the  Renaissance  underwent  a  new  birth  in  life  and  lit- 
erature. French  neo-Classicism  drew  at  second  hand  from  Greek 
drama  the  cramping  doctrine  of  the  unities,  while  Schiller, 
Goethe,  and  Shelley  saw  in  Prometheus  the  prototype  of  radical 
and  reformer.  In  our  day,  Greek  mythology  has  given  inspira- 
tion to  psychoanalysis  with  its  Oedipus  and  Electra  complexes, 
and  a  trilogy  of  Aeschylus  has  furnished  the  pretext  for  Eugene 
O'Neill's  study  in  the  morbid  psychology  of  New  England.  Sci- 
ence has  made  liberal  use  of  the  Greek  language  to  give  its 
phenomena  and  processes  significant  terminology,  and  art  ever 
looks  to  it  for  its  model.  The  ancient  Hellenes  were  first  in 
almost  every  domain  of  modern  activity.  The  facts  they  found 
and  the  processes  they  discovered,  the  classifications  they  devised 
and  the  terminology  they  invented  are  of  interest  and  sometimes 
of  scientific  importance  today.  To  them  we  owe  literary  forms, 
political  patterns,  and  theological  conceptions.  The  Greeks  are 
still  with  us. 

MYTHOLOGY  AND  CITY-STATE  RELIGION 

Ancient  Greek  legend  like  ancient  Greek  philosophy  begins 
with  an  attempt  to  explain  the  origin  of  the  world.  Homer 
asserts  that  all  things  including  the  gods  sprang  from  father 
Ocean.  According  to  Hesiod,  Chaos  came  first.  Next  followed 
Earth;  Tartaros,  like  Erebos,  symbolizing  the  gloom  of  the  under- 
world; and  Love.  After  them  were  born  Erebos  and  Night,  the 


MYTHOLOGY  AND  CITY-STATE  RELIGION 


129 


children  of  Chaos;  then  Aether,  the  bright  upper  air,  not  Aer,  the 
murky  atmosphere  of  earth.  Aether  along  with  Day  did  Night 
and  Erebos  bring  forth.  Alone  Night  bore  black  Fate  and  Death, 
Sleep,  and  the  tribe  of  Dreams.  Alone,  for  she  lay  with  none, 
murky  Night  brought  forth  Blame  and  painful  Woe  and  the 
Hesperides,  who  guard  the  rich,  golden  apples  beyond  Ocean. 
The  Fates,  too,  Clotho  and  Lachesis  and  Atropos,  were  her  chil- 
dren, and  Nemesis",  the  goddess  of  indignation,  who  hates  all 
transgressions  of  the  bounds  of  moderation  and  punishes  the  ar- 
rogant among  men.  Broad-bosomed  Earth,  the  sure  foundation 
of  all,  begat  starry  Heaven  and  with  him  produced  the  Titans: 
Ocean  and  Rhea;  Themis,  goddess  of  justice  and  law;  Mnemo- 
syne, who  is  memory;  lapetus,  through  his  son  Prometheus  des- 
tined to  create  the  race  of  men;  and  wily  Cronos,  youngest  and 
most  terrible  of  all  that  brood,  who  hated  his  father,  Heaven,  and 
mutilated  him  with  a  sickle.  From  the  blood  of  Heaven  thus 
wounded  rose  the  Giants  and  the  Furies  and  Aphrodite,  goddess 
of  love. 

With  Rhea,  Cronos  became  the  parent  of  Hcstia,  deity  of  the 
hearth;  Demeter,  the  earth  goddess;  Hades,  lord  of  the  under- 
world; Poseidon,  god  of  ocean  and  shaker  of  the  earth;  and 
finally  Zeus,  the  sky  god,  the  thundcrer,  and  his  destined  wife, 
Hera.  Athena,  the  patroness  of  wisdom  and  all  the  arts,  leapt  full- 
armed  from  the  head  of  Zeus,  which  Hephaestus  had  cleft  with 
a  blow  of  his  ax.  Fair-haired  Leto,  coming  in  the  island  of  Delos 
to  the  end  of  her  many  wanderings,  bore  to  Zeus  Apollo,  lord  of 
the  bow,  god  of  plague  and  prophecy  and  music;  and  Artemis, 
virgin  deity  of  the  chase,  goddess  of  the  moon,  who  with  her 
shafts  brings  peaceful  death  to  the  aged.  Likewise  Hephaestus, 
ruling  over  fire  and  forge;  Ares,  god  of  war;  Hermes,  who  bears 
the  messages  of  the  gods  and  conducts  the  souls  of  the  dead  to 
Hades;  and  joyous  Dionysus,  god  of  wine,  were  all  children  of 
Zeus.  Through  a  long  period  of  volcanic  upheaval  and  convul- 
sion, with  rocks  and  mountains  and  the  blazing  thunderbolt 
forged  by  the  Cyclopes,  the  gods  contended  for  mastery  with  both 
Titans  and  Giants.  At  length  Zeus  was  firmly  established  as  lord 
of  gods  and  men.  He  with  his  colleagues  and  children,  Hera, 
Poseidon,  Demeter,  Hestia,  Apollo,  Artemis,  Hephaestus,  Athena, 


0  GREEK  CULTURE 

Hermes,  Ares,  and  Aphrodite,  made  up  the  number  of  those 
twelve  deities  who  have  their  palaces  on  snow-clad  Olympus. 

GODS  AND  MEN 

The  origin  of  men  is  made  less  clear.  According  to  one  belief 
the  human  race  sprang  from  the  earth  or  from  rocks  and  trees. 
Certain  families  claimed  direct  descent  from  gods  and  nymphs. 
Another  account  relates  that  the  gods  or  Prometheus,  son  of  the 
Titan  lapetus,  made  men  out  of  clay.  Hesiod  tells  us  that  Pro- 
metheus not  only  tricked  Zeus  by  giving  him  the  poorest  part  of 
a  sacrifice,  but  stole  the  fire  which  the  all-father  had  hidden  from 
men,  taking  it  out  of  heaven  in  a  hollow  fennel  stalk.  In  revenge 
the  gods  made  an  evil  thing  for  men  as  the  price  of  fire.  Zeus 
commanded  Hephaestus  to  knead  out  of  earth  and  water  the  first 
woman,  Pandora,  so  called  because  she  possessed  all  gifts,  a 
lovely  maiden  like  in  face  to  the  immortal  goddesses.  Athene 
taught  her  needlework  and  weaving;  Aphrodite  shed  grace  upon 
her  head  and  cruel  longing  that  wearies  the  limbs  of  men.  When 
Hermes  conducted  Pandora  to  the  home  of  Prometheus  she  car- 
ried with  her  a  jar  containing  all  manner  of  cares  and  wasting 
diseases  previously  unknown.  This  she  had  been  straitly  enjoined 
not  to  open.  Epimetheus,  or  "  after-thought,"  did  not  remember 
the  warnings  of  his  brother  Prometheus,  "  fore-thought,"  but  re- 
ceived the  gift  she  carried.  When  Pandora,  her  curiosity  over- 
coming her,  opened  the  box,  all  the  evils  of  toil  and  sickness  and 
old  age  flew  out,  leaving  only  Hope  within  the  jar.  Thus  ended 
the  Silver  Age  which  had  followed  the  golden  reign  of  Cronos, 
Prometheus  himself  was  fastened  to  a  lonely  cliff  where  a  vulture 
preyed  upon  his  liver. 

With  their  champion  gone,  men  went  from  bad  to  worse; 
thence  ensued  the  Brazen  and  the  Iron  Age,  in  which  violence 
and  war  overwhelmed  all  things.  Modesty,  Truth,  and  Honor 
wrapped  their  white  robes  about  them  and  fled  from  earth  to 
heaven.  Zeus  swept  the  race  of  mankind  away  with  a  mighty 
flood  and  only  Deucalion,  son  of  Prometheus,  with  his  wife 
Pyrrha  was  left  to  tell  the  tale  of  humanity.  After  nine  days 
and  nights,  when  a  dove  had  given  good  omen,  the  ark  in  which 


HIGH  GODS  AND  LOW  I3I 

these  two  were  floating  came  to  rest  on  Mount  Parnassus.  There 
Deucalion  and  Pyrrha,  at  divine  direction  threw  rocks  over  their 
shoulders  and  those  that  Pyrrha  threw  became  women;  those 
thrown  by  Deucalion,  men.  The  son  of  Deucalion,  according  to 
the  most  common  account,  was  Hellen,  whose  own  sons  were 
Aeolus,  Dorus,  Achaeus,  and  Ion.  Thus  there  came  into  being 
the  world,  the  Hellenic  race,  and  its  divisions  —  Aeolians,  Do- 
rians, Achaeans,  and  lonians.4  By  the  eighth  century  B.C.  the 
Greeks  had  presented  in  their  own  image  gods  who  portrayed 
the  whole  pageant  of  nature  and  symbolized  the  fundamental 
passions  of  the  race,  as  wine,  war,  and  love. 

HIGH  GOBS  AND  Low 

There  are  traces  in  ancient  Greek  communities  of  the  worship 
o£  stones  and  trees  and  animals.  And  there  is  every  indication 
that  the  Greeks  had  cults  devoted  to  the  worship  of  heroes,  an- 
cestors, and  the  dead  generally.  These  undersurface  manifesta- 
tions,, however,  are  far  less  important  than  the  worship  of  the 
Olympian  gods  as  a  part  of  everyday  Greek  existence.  No  meal 
was  complete  without  an  offering  of  food  and  wine  to  the  gods. 
At  the  end  of  each  meal  every  guest  took  a  sip  of  unmixed  wine 
in  honor  of  the  "  Good  Divinity."  During  the  course  of  the 
symposium,  or  drinking  bout,  which  followed  the  food,  three 
bowls  of  wine  and  water  were  ordinarily  consumed.  Out  of  the 
first  a  libation  of  one  cup  was  poured  to  the  Olympians,  espe- 
cially Zeus;  out  of  the  second,  a  libation  to  the  Heroes;  and  out 
of  the  third  a  libation  to  Zeus,  the  Savior;  then  last  of  all  came  a 
paean  or  hymn. 

On  festival  days  special  sacrifices  were  offered  in  each  home  to 
the  particular  god  who  was  being  honored.  Every  important  un- 
dertaking was  begun  with  sacrifice  and  prayer;  birth,  marriage, 
and  death  had  each  a  specific  ceremony  to  the  appropriate  god. 
In  public  life  the  meetings  of  assemblies,  councils,  and  law-courts 
were  opened  with  similar  ceremonies.  At  the  beginning  of  as- 
semblies, for  example,  a  sacrificed  suckling-pig  was  carried  round 
the  meeting  place  to  purify  the  assembly;  a  crier  summoned  all 
*  Hcsiod,  Wor\s  and  Days,  43-201;  Theogny,  115  et  seq. 


I32  GREEK  CULTURE 

the  people  to  come  within  the  line  of  purification.  Prayers  were 
offered  that  no  speaker  might  deceive  the  people  with  his  ha- 
rangues or  his  oratory. 

In  the  ritual  o£  sacrifice  garlanded  priests  led  a  garlanded  vic- 
tim, often  with  gilded  horns,  to  the  altar.  A  struggling  victim 
augured  ill  for  the  sacrifice;  a  willing  one  was  a  good  omen.  All 
the  worshipers  as  well  as  the  altar  were  sprinkled  with  water 
consecrated  by  a  torch  from  the  altar  of  sacrifice.  Solemn  silence 
was  then  enjoined  for  the  prayers  that  followed.  Subsequently 
the  victim  was  sprinkled  with  barley  grains,  hair  was  cut  from 
its  head  and  thrown  into  the  fire,  and  when  the  beast  had  been 
stunned  by  the  blow  of  an  ax  or  a  club,  its  throat  was  slit.  If  the 
sacrifice  was  offered  to  the  Olympians,  the  head  of  the  animal 
was  pulled  upward;  if  to  the  underworld  deities,  downward. 
The  gushing  blood,  caught  in  a  bowl,  was  used  to  sprinkle  altar 
and  congregation.  After  the  victim  had  been  skinned  and  cut 
up,  the  liver,  lobe,  and  internal  organs  were  inspected  for  omens. 
The  thigh-bones,  fat,  parts  of  each  joint,  and  the  tail  were  burned 
on  the  altar  for  the  gods;  the  remainder  was  placed  on  spits  for 
cooking  and  was  often  eaten  by  the  worshipers  on  the  spot.  The 
gods,  if  we  may  believe  Greek  satire,  sniffed  the  savor  of  the 
meat  as  it  poured  through  holes  in  the  heavenly  pavement. 
Throughout  the  sacrifice  a  flute-player  kept  up  a  constant  dron- 
ing in  order  to  drown  out  ill-omened  noises  that  might  drive 
away  the  god,  hovering  near. 

The  Greek  prayed  standing  with  hands  raised,  palm  up,  unless 
he  was  addressing  the  gods  of  the  lower  world,  in  which  case  it 
was  proper  to  stretch  the  arms  downward,  kneel  to  touch  the 
earth  with  the  hand,  or  even  stamp  on  the  ground  to  get  the  at- 
tention of  underworld  deities.  The  petitions  of  ordinary  prayer 
followed  a  set  formula.  The  assumption  was  that  if  the  wor- 
shiper did  his  part  and  offered  proper  sacrifices  of  unblemished 
animals,  the  gods  would  do  their  share.  Curses  were  felt  to  be 
very  real  things,  existing  in  force  until  nullified  by  counter  magic. 
Generally  speaking,  the  objects  of  sacrifice  and  prayer  were  to 
discover  the  will  of  the  gods,  to  find  in  this  manner  guidance  for 
public  and  private  life,  to  keep  the  friendship  of  the  kindly  Olym- 
pians, and  placate  the  hostile  powers  of  the  underworld. 


PRIESTHOOD  AND  SACRIFICE  I33 

PRIESTHOOD  AND  SACRIFICE 

Greece  was  never  priest-ridden  as  was  the  Orient.  No  priestly 
caste  with  overwhelming  powers  dictated  a  uniform  policy, 
though  the  priests  of  Apollo  at  Delphi  did  endeavor  in  many 
ways  to  shape  the  course  of  Greek  government.  It  was  their  aim 
in  general  to  subordinate  completely  the  welfare  of  the  individual 
to  that  of  the  body  politic.  They  were  successful  in  fact  and 
theory  only  at  Sparta.  Athens  theoretically  made  the  individual 
less  important  than  the  State,  but  in  practice  gave  the  widest  pos- 
sible scope  for  the  free  development  of  personality.  In  a  very 
real  sense  the  father  of  every  Greek  family  was  a  priest  by  right 
and  practice.  Religion,  the  worship  of  the  gods,  was  inextricably 
linked,  as  we  have  seen,  with  both  private  and  public  life.  Sac- 
rifices offered  in  behalf  of  the  State  on  the  public  hearth,  which 
corresponded  to  that  in  each  home,  were  conducted  by  a  city 
magistrate,  known  as  the  "  King,"  who  represented  in  his  person 
the  priestly  powers  enjoyed  by  the  old  king  of  the  Homeric  tribe 
from  which  the  city-state  organization  had  evolved. 

There  were  of  course  hereditary  priesthoods,  concerned  mainly 
with  the  management  of  oracles  and  mystery  cults.  But  these 
tended  to  become  mere  political  offices,  filled  by  election  or  by  lot, 
or  indeed  in  later  times,  sold  to  the  highest  bidder.  The  per- 
quisites of  a  priest  attached  to  a  temple  included  a  share  of  the 
victims.  The  temple  itself  owned  property,  slaves,  money,  and 
real  estate,  especially  the  land  surrounding  the  building  proper. 
One  beneficent  custom  observed  in  connection  with  temples  de- 
serves mention  here,  the  right  of  refuge.  In  the  case  of  the  great 
shrine  of  Artemis  at  Ephesus,  the  territory  for  a  considerable 
space  round  about  was  sacred.  Within  it  criminals,  ill-used 
slaves,  and  others  might  take  refuge  from  punishment. 

It  was  customary  for  good  citizens  to  sacrifice  when  the  city 
did,  but  that  was  a  matter  of  loyalty  and  good  taste.  There  was 
no  binding  oath,  nor  was  there  a  bible  containing  the  whole 
true  and  complete  faith.  Homer  and  Hesiod  were  in  some  ways 
the  bibles  of  the  Greeks.  Nurses  told  their  small  charges  stories 
from  these  poems,  sometimes  scandalous  ones,  a  custom  which 
Plato  condemned  in  The  Republic,  Thieves  and  adulterers  de- 


GREEK  CULTURE 

fended  their  conduct  by  referring  to  the  morals  of  the  Olympic 
gods,  and  perhaps  the  very  credulous  took  every  myth  as  gospel 
truth.  Certain  maxims,  often  attributed  to  the  centaur  Chiron, 
sum  up  the  pre-Socratic  household  morality  —  Honor  the  gods, 
Honor  your  parents,-  Do  not  illtreat  strangers  or  foreigners.  The 
sayings  of  the  Seven  Sages  represent  the  Greek  ethics  of  common 
sense  and  practical  philosophy.  The  most  brilliant  examples  of 
these  dicta  are  found  in  the  philosophic  injunctions  "  Know  thy- 
self/' attributed  to  Chilon  of  Sparta,  and  "  Nothing  in  excess,"  a 
maxim  of  Solon  inscribed  on  one  of  the  temples  at  Delphi.  In  a 
way,  these  were  autonomous  ideals,  yet  there  were  various  gods 
who  were  believed  to  enforce  the  laws  of  piety,  filial  duty,  the 
sanctity  of  the  household,  and  the  treatment  of  guests,  as  also  to 
punish  perjury. 

Greek  religion,  however,  was  more  than  a  moral  way  of  life. 
There  were  household  and  state  observances  of  a  daily  nature,  as 
well  as  certain  national  festivals  which  tended  to  make  Athens, 
if  not  all  Greece,  a  year-long  pageant  of  beauty.  Among  these 
we  need  mention  only  the  Olympic  Games,  the  Panathenaic 
Festival,  depicted  on  the  frieze  of  the  Parthenon,  and  the  great 
spring  festival  of  Dionysus,  during  which  twelve  tragedies  and 
five  comedies  were  produced  annually  at  Athens.  In  attending 
these  religious  celebrations,  it  was  possible  for  a  Greek  to  meet 
old  friends  and  make  new  ones,  to  witness  contests  of  strength 
and  skill,  and  to  attend  recitals  of  music  and  poetry.  Thus  the 
aims  of  everyday  life  and  the  aspirations  after  friendship  and 
beauty  were  fulfilled  by  the  various  rites  associated  with  the  gods 
of  ancient  Greece. 

BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY 

But  there  was  another  side  to  the  religion  of  Hellas  —  the  spir- 
itual. The  statement  is  often  made  that  the  Greeks  had  no  vital 
belief  in  immortality,  yet  the  Greek  orator  Isocrates  says  that 
those  who  have  been  initiated  into  the  Eleusinian  Mysteries 
'*  have  sweeter  hopes  regarding  the  end  of  life  and  all  eternity."  5 
[n  the  Eleusinian  Mysteries,  as  with  similar  cults,  no  lines  were 

5  Panegyric  on  Athens,  Sect.  28. 


BELIEF  IN  IMMORTALITY  I35 

drawn  between  bond  and  free,  male  and  female;  all  alike  were 
free  to  undergo  the  initiation  provided  they  were  persons  of  good 
morals.  The  central  feature  of  this  cult  seems  to  have  been  a 
pageant  of  immortality  representing  the  search  of  Demeter,  the 
goddess  of  grain  and  harvest,  for  her  daughter  Proserpine,  who 
had  been  carried  off  by  the  god  of  the  underworld.  The  com- 
parison of  the  human  body  to  a  grain  of  wheat  sown  in  death  and 
raised  in  immortality  is  common  to  Greek  as  to  rabbinical  and 
Christian  thought. 

The  Eleusinian  initiates  did  not  constitute  a  separate  congre- 
gation with  fixed  places  and  times  for  meeting;  their  influence  in 
favor  of  the  doctrine  worked  quietly  like  widely  scattered  social 
leaven.  This  was  not  the  case  with  the  brotherhood  of  Pythago- 
ras and  the  society  of  the  Orphics,  which  first  began  to  attract 
notice  in  Greece  during  the  sixth  century  B.C.  Even  in  Homer 
we  hear  of  the  ascetic  Selli,  priests  of  Zeus  at  Dodona  in  Epirus, 
who  went  barefoot,  never  bathed,  and  slept  on  the  ground.6  The 
pre-Socratic  philosopher  Heraclitus  retired  to  the  mountains 
where  he  lived  on  herbs  and  roots,  while  the  philosopher  Empedo- 
cles  advised  his  disciples  to  abstain  from  sexual  relations  and 
lead  a  celibate  life.  But  these  are  isolated  instances  of  extreme 
moralism. 

The  Orphics  and  Pythagoreans  made  up  a  fairly  large  portion 
of  a  section  of  Greek  society.  The  supreme  god  of  the  Orphics 
was  Bacchus,  or  Dionysus-Zagreus.  Legend  has  it  that  this 
Zagreus  was  slain  at  the  command  of  the  jealous  Hera  by  the 
Titan  spirits  of  winter  and  frost  but  that,  in  the  spring,  the  buoy- 
ant son  o£  Zeus  rose  from  the  dead.  Man  himself,  so  it  was  be- 
lieved, by  drinking  the  blood  of  victims  or  wine,  which  is  the 
god's  blood,  and  by  eating  the  flesh  of  sacrificial  animals,  which 
is  the  god's  body,  may  approach  divinity  and  attain  to  immortal- 
ity after  death.  The  higher  group  of  Orphics  stressed  the  intoxi- 
cating and  orgiastic  features  of  their  religion  rather  than  its  as- 
cetic side.  Holiness  may  be  attained  only  by  rigorous  living, 
which  purges  the  body  of  its  Titanic  elements  and  renders  man 
pure  and  Dionysiac.  The  more  severe  Orphics  dressed  in  white, 
abstained  from  meat  and  wine,  and  practiced  frequent  fasting, 
«  Iliad,  Bk.  XVI,  233. 


I3g  GREEK  CULTURE 

purification,  confessions,  and  atonements,  if  not  actual  flagella- 
tion. The  soul,  they  held,  is  imprisoned  in  the  tomb  of  the  body 
as  punishment  for  past  sins  and  must  be  purified,  not  only  by 
ascetic  practices,  but  by  a  series  of  reincarnations  also.  Those 
who  live  the  good  life  change  into  higher  bodies,  while  those  who 
are  base  are  transformed  into  beasts.  The  tortures  of  mud  and 
fire  and  cold  are  reserved  in  Hell  for  the  incorrigible,  but  the 
truly  pure  finally  escape  from  the  wheel  of  generation  and  depart 
wholly  from  the  prison  of  the  body. 

The  tenets  of  the  Pythagoreans  were  much  the  same,  although 
their  chief  god  was  a  person  very  different  from  Dionysus;  he 
was  Apollo,  god  of  arts  and  sciences,  and,  as  we  shall  see  pres- 
ently, he  inspired  the  Greek  intellect.  But  as  time  went  on, 
Pythagoreanism  came  to  mean  daily  self-examination,  going  bare- 
foot, and  abstinence  from  beef,  wine,  and  beans.  Indeed,  this 
Apollonian  cult  came  to  signify  a  belief  in  transmigration  and 
punishment  after  death  rather  than  devotion  to  science. 

GREEK  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

Like  Greek  mythology,  early  Greek  philosophy  dealt  with  the 
problem  of  the  world;  the  mythology  was  rich  and  riotous,  the 
metaphysics  crude  and  limited.  Thales  inaugurated  what  was  to 
become  Greek  philosophy  by  reducing  all  existence  to  the  single 
element  of  water.  This  pioneer  philosopher  was  more  adept  at 
science.  He  predicted  the  eclipse  of  585  B.C.,  measured  the  height 
of  the  pyramids  of  Egypt  by  the  shadows  they  cast,  foretold  a 
fruitful  season  for  olives,  and  made  a  fortune  by  renting  all  the 
oil-presses  available.  Anaximander,  his  contemporary,  set  up  as 
his  first  principle  what  he  called  unlimited  material  or  to  apriron 
and  suggested  that-  the  cosmic  scheme  involves  an  indefinite 
number  of  rotating  systems.  As  a  primitive  evolutionist,  Anaxi- 
mander claimed  that  fishes  developed  from  the  earthly  slime 
under  the  warmth  of  the  sun,  and  from  •  fishes  came  animals 
and  men. 

Anaxagoras  of  Clazomenae  in  Asia  Minor,  who  in  the  fifth 
century  taught  Pericles  and  was  the  intimate  of  Euripides,  held 
that  all  things  had  existed  from  the  beginning  in  the  form  of  an 


GREEK  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

unlimited  number  of  "  seeds,"  or  elements  consisting  of  homo- 
geneous substances.  All  was  chaos  until  Mind  came  and  formed 
the  ordered  world.  Shortly  before  the  Peldponnesian  War  Anax- 
agoras  was  indicted  for  impiety  on  the  charge  that  he  had  called 
the  sun  a  mass  of  red-hot  metal  rather  than  a  god.  Although 
Pericles  defended  him,  Anaxagoras  narrowly  escaped  death,  and 
after  paying  a  fine  of  more  than  five  thousand  dollars  went  into 
exile.7 

Empedocles  of  Agrigentum  in  Sicily,  who  flourished  during 
the  fifth  century,  recognized  four  elements  as  the  basis  of  his 
world:  earth,  water,  air,  and  fire.  The  phenomena  in  this  world 
are  accounted  for  by  two  forces:  Love,  which  unites;  and  Hate, 
which  separates  the  elements.  Apparently  he  taught  that  among 
animals  the  fit  survive  and  the  unfit  die  out.  Heraclitus  of 
Ephesus,  the  obscure,  the  "  weeping  philosopher,"  found  in  sen- 
tient, self -kindled,  self -extinguished  fire,  which  he  identified  with 
the  divine  spirit^  an  explanation  for  the  universe.  All  things  flow, 
said  Heraclitus.  Nothing  remains  constant.  Into  fire  all  things 
change  and  from  fire  they  pass  to  various  forms,  affording  sport 
to  the  creator  who  destroys  and  creates  again  the  world  innumer- 
able times.  Before  the  time  of  Heraclitus,  Anaximenes  found  in 
air,  through  the  theory  of  condensation  and  rarefaction,  the  prime 
substance  of  the  universe  and  the  motivating  cause  of  its  chang- 
ing phenomena. 

Parmenides  of  Elea  in  the  early  fifth  century  contradicted  vig- 
orously those  who  emphasized  variety  in  their  theories  of  the 
universe.  He  denied  the  existence  of  space,  and  asserted  that 
true  being  exists  as  a  single  and  eternal  sphere,  filling  the  space 
of  the  sphere  continuously.  Only  being  exists;  non-being  has  no 
existence;  the  plurality  of  objects,  of  phenomena,  is  a  mere  delu- 
sion. Other  members  of  the  Eleatic  school  sought  to  show  that 
motion  is  impossible.  These  absurdities  were  combated  by  De- 
mocritus,  the  "  laughing  philosopher  "  of  Abdera,  and  by  Leucip- 
pus,  who  frankly  avowed  the  existence  of  space  and  declared  that 
atoms  moving  by  necessity  in  the  void  were  what  brought  about 
our  universe. 

7  Plutarch,  Life  of  Pericles,  32.  Diogenes  Laertius,  lives  of  the  Philosophers, 
II,  12. 


I3g  GREEK  CULTURE 

GREEK  MATHEMATICS 

Pythagoras  himself  was  a  contemporary  of  Thales.  But  inas- 
much as  he  left  no  writings,  it  is  better  to  discuss  him  in  relation 
to  his  school.  The  Pythagoreans  found  in  harmony  and  number 
the  basic  elements  of  the  world.  They  developed  the  science  of 
numbers,  which  they  were  the  first  to  distinguish  from  practical 
calculation,  and  wisely  so,  for  the  Greek  system  of  numerals  was 
always  alphabetical  and  so  unsatisfactory  that  business  men  and 
schoolboys  had  recourse  to  counting-boards  or  finger-symbolism. 
Geometry  they  developed  to  a  high  point.  The  Pythagorean 
theorem  that  the  square  on  the  hypotenuse  of  any  right-angled 
triangle  is  equal  to  the  sum  of  the  squares  on  the  other  two  sides 
enjoys  such  general  currency  that  it  is  almost  an  impertinence  to 
mention  it.  Pythagoras  or  the  Pythagoreans  discovered  the  nu- 
merical relations  of  tones,  as  determined  by  the  length  of  the 
vibrating  strings  which  produce  them.  They  were  the  first  to 
point  out  that  the  earth  is  spherical;  they  knew  that  the  sun, 
moon,  and  planets  have  movements  of  their  own  distinguished 
from  their  daily  rotations,  and  discovered  that  the  earth  revolves 
about  the  sun. 

The  history  of  later  Greek  mathematics  must  be  briefly 
scanned.  Plato  shared  the  contemporary  enthusiasm  and  urged 
his  disciples  to  specialize  in  mathematics  and  astronomy.  Hera- 
elides  of  Pontus  announced  that  the  earth  rotates  on  its  axis  once 
every  twenty-four  hours  and  that  Mercury  and  Venus  revolve 
like  satellites  around  the  sun.  Menaechmus,  the  pupil  of  Plato's 
brilliant  contemporary  Eudoxus,  discovered  conic  sections. 
About  300  B.C.,  Euclid  wrote  a  textbook  on  geometry,  The  Ele- 
ments, which  remained  sovereign  in  the  classroom  until  recent 
years.  Aristarchus  of  Samos,  who  flourished  in  the  third  cen- 
tury B.C.,  anticipated  the  Copernican  theory.  The  sun,  said  he,  is 
at  rest;  the  earth,  Mercury,  Venus,  and  the  other  planets  revolve 
in  circles  about  it.  According  to  Cleanthes  the  Stoic,  a  man  so 
bold  as  to  set  the  earth,  Hearth  of  the  Universe,  in  motion  ought 
to  be  tried  for  impiety. 

Archimedes,  a  contemporary  of  Aristarchus,  was  the  greatest 
scientist  of  antiquity  and  deserves  special  mention.  The  princi- 


GREEK  MATHEMATICS 

pie  of  the  lever  had  been  known  from  very  early  times.  Archi- 
medes, with  his  flair  for  the  dramatic,  said,  "  Give  me  a  place  on 
which  to  stand  and  I'll  move  the  earth."  So  great  was  his  ab- 
sorption with  mathematical  problems  that  his  servants  had  liter- 
ally to  drag  him  away  from  his  studies  for  relaxation  and  anoint- 
ing in  the  bath,  and  even  there  he  continued  to  draw  diagrams 
on  his  body  with  a  flesh-scraper.  Once,  while  entering  his  bath, 
he  observed  that  the  water  overflowed  the  tub;  this  action  sug- 
gested to  him  that  a  body  immersed  in  a  fluid  loses  in  weight 
by  an  amount  equal  to  that  of  the  fluid  displaced.  This  sug- 
gested to  him  the  solution  of  a  problem  that  had  been  put  to  him 
when  King  Hieron  wished  to  discover  the  proportion  of  gold  in 
his  crown.  Archimedes  had  discovered  one  of  the  most  impor- 
tant principles  o£  hydrostatics.  Accordingly  we  have  the  story 
that  he  leaped  from  the  tub  and  rushed  forth  shouting,  "  Eureka 
—  I  have  found  it."  The  tubular  screw  he  invented  for  draining 
the  fields  of  Egypt  after  a  Nile  flood  is  still  in  practical  use.  But 
the  great  Sicilian  prided  himself  most  on  his  contributions  to 
pure  mathematics.  On  his  sand-table  he  worked  out  problems 
of  the  most  complicated  nature  in  connection  with  the  measure- 
ment of  curvilinear  areas  and  volumes. 

Eratosthenes  measured  the  circumference  of  the  earth.  In 
doing  this,  he  observed  that  at  Syene  during  the  summer  solstice 
the  sun  is  vertical,  whereas  at  Alexandria,  a  city  on  about  the 
same  meridian,  the  sun  is  below  the  zenith  by  the  fifteenth  part 
of  a  great  circle.  Neglecting  to  take  into  account  the  solar 
parallax,  he  concluded  that  the  diameter  of  the  earth  is  fifty 
times  the  distance  from  Alexandria,  or  7,850  miles,  which  is  fifty 
miles  less  than  the  true  polar  diameter.  In  the  next  century,  the 
astronomer  Hipparchus  invented  plane  and  spherical  trigonome- 
try and  devised  a  method  for  locating  places  by  means  of  latitude 
and  longitude.  An  Egyptian  engineer,  Heron  of  Alexandria, 
who  wrote  in  Greek,  described  a  number  of  mechanical  inven- 
tions and  toys,  among  them  a  penny  slot-machine.  In  the  sec- 
ond century  A.D.,  Claudius  Ptolemaeus  of  Upper  Egypt  wrote 
a  classic  work  on  geography  which  dealt  with  map-making,  and 
furnished  a  table  of  climates  as  well  as  a  catalogue  of  the  stars. 
This  work,  called  the  Almagest,  reasserted  the  old  geocentric  the- 


I4o  GREEK  CULTURE 

ory  and  remained  standard  until  the  time  of  Copernicus.  Re- 
turning to  the  Greeks,  we  observe  that  the  Pythagoreans  had 
operated  to  some  extent  with  algebraic  equations.  But  it  was  not 
until  the  third  century  A.D.  that  Diophantus  of  Alexandria  wrote 
the  first  known  textbook  on  algebra.  He  is  the  earliest  writer 
to  use  conventional  algebraic  symbols,  though  he  was  probably 
not  their  inventor. 

In  summary  form,  then,  the  Greeks  devised  the  terminology 
and  classifications  of  the  higher  mathematical  sciences  by  which 
they  were  able  to  invade  the  province  even  of  integral  calculus. 
On  the  side  of  astronomy  they  began  to  name  and  map  the  stars 
and,  among  other  things,  anticipated  the  Copernican  system.  In 
geography  they  were  the  first  to  develop  the  science  of  map- 
making  and  to  study  the  problem  of  climate  and  racial 
distribution. 

MEDICAL  PRACTICE 

Medicine,  like  the  earliest  Greek  speculations  about  the  origin 
of  the  world,  had  its  roots  in  religion.  The  first  physicians  were 
probably  the  priests  of  Asclepius,  the  healing  god,  and  the  tem- 
ples of  Asclepius  at  Tricca  in  northern  Greece,  Epidaurus  in 
southwestern  Greece,  and  in  the  island  of  Cos  were  the  earliest 
sanitoria.  The  fully  developed  shrine  of  Asclepius  contained 
within  its  grounds  a  dormitory  for  patients,  a  running-track,  and 
theater.  Patients  were  sometimes  cured  outright  while  they  slept 
by  the  god,  who  appeared  with  his  sacred  snakes  and  his  daugh- 
ters, Hygieia  and  Panacea.  More  often  the  god  gave  directions 
for  a  strenuous  course  of  diet  and  exercise  in  the  open  air.  The 
walls  of  the  shrine  were  covered  with  replicas  of  parts  of  the  body 
that  had  been  healed,  offerings  from  rich  and  poor  alike. 

As  early  as  the  fifth  century  two  distinct  schools  of  medicine 
had  come  to  the  fore:  that  of  Cnidos  in  Asia  Minor  and  that  of 
Hippocrates,  the  Asclepiad  priest,  in  the  island  of  Cos.  The 
former  laid  great  weight  on  diagnosis;  the  latter,  on  prognosis,  or 
the  ability  on  the  basis  of  case-histories  carefully  recorded  to  pre- 
dict the  probable  course  of  a  disease.  Dissection  of  animals  had 
been  practiced  as  early  as  500  B.C.  by  Alcmaeon  of  Croton  in  Italy, 
who  discovered  the  optic  nerves  and  the  eustachian  tubes. 


MEDICAL  PRACTICE  !4I 

Diogenes  of  Apollonia  in  the  late  fifth  century  probably  dissected 
human  bodies  as  well  as  animals  and  gave  an  excellent  descrip- 
tion of  the  human  heart,  which  he  compared  with  that  of  ani- 
mals. But  it  remained  for  Hippocrates,  who  flourished  about 
400  B.C.,  to  make  of  medicine  a  humanitarian  art,  a  profession 
with  a  definite  procedure  and  code  of  ethics  rather  than  a  static 
priestly  trade  handed  down  without  improvement  from  father 
to  son. 

The  great  contributions  of  Hippocrates  and  his  school  —  it  is 
generally  impossible  to  distinguish  the  one  from  the  other  in  the 
Hippocratic  Corpus  —  were;  the  Hippocratic  Oath,  which  still 
continues  to  influence  medical  ethics,  and  the  case-history  method 
by  which  they  recorded  the  courses  and  origins  of  the  various 
diseases  which  came  under  their  observation.  The  Hippocratic 
Oath  directs  the  student  to  support  and  care  for  his  teacher  and 
his  teacher's  sons  as  if  they  were  his  own  parent  and  offspring;  to 
teach  the  art  of  medicine  without  fee  or  price  to  his  own  sons  and 
those  of  his  teacher,  as  well  as  to  disciples  bound  by  the  oath  of 
physicians  —  but  to  no  one  else;  to  prescribe  only  that  treatment 
which  is  harmless  and  never  to  give  a  deadly  drug  or  procure  an 
abortion;  to  keep  his  own  life  in  purity  and  holiness,  refraining 
from  wrong  relations  with  patients  and  keeping  professional  se- 
crets jealously. 

Some  of  the  Hippocratic  findings  are  still  valid  in  modern 
medicine.  They  noted,  for  instance,  the  symptoms  of  approach- 
ing death,  particularly  what  is  now  called  "  Cheyne-Stokes " 
respiration,  the  labored  breathing  as  of  one  "  suddenly  recollect- 
ing himself."  They  observed  that  convulsions  or  hiccups,  super- 
vening on  profuse  bleeding,  and  the  lack  of  swelling  following 
severe  wounds  are  dangerous;  and  they  marked  the  beneficent 
nature  of  sound  sleep  after  fever-delirium.  In  dealing  with  chest 
conditions  they  used  the  method  of  tapping,  shaking,  and  listen- 
ing employed  now  in  connection  with  the  stethoscope.  They 
opened  the  chest  and  drew  out  discharges  accumulating  in  cases 
of  empyema;  they  dealt  very  skillfully  with  fractures  and  dislo- 
cations, even  trephining  the  skull  for  treatment  of  fractures  there, 
though  of  course  they  did  not  advance  to  major  surgery.  Hippo- 
cratic discussions  of  the  care  of  operating-rooms,  and  the  insist- 


I42  GREEK  CULTURE 

ence  on  the  necessity  for  keeping  hands  and  instruments  spot- 
lessly clean  are  still  classic.  Treatment  included  dieting,  baths, 
clysters,  massage,  and  regulated  exercise  with  the  application  or 
administering  of  healing  herbs;  but  most  of  all  the  Hippocratics 
believed  in  the  "  healing  force  of  nature." 

The  scientific  viewpoint  of  the  Hippocratics  is  well  illustrated 
by  an  anonymous  work  On  the  Sacred  Disease,  or  epilepsy.  The 
author  denies  that  epilepsy  is  caused  by  demonic  possession  and 
states  that,  if  not  chronic,  it  may  be  cured.  Like  other  diseases  it 
has  a  cause  and  a  cure.  Nature,  he  declares,  has  certain  laws 
which  may  be  followed  and  these  laws  know  no  exceptions.  An- 
other treatise,  belonging  to  the  same  school,  On  Airs,  Waters, 
and  Places,  sets  forth  the  interesting  theory  that  acquired  physical 
characteristics  may  be  inherited,  discusses  the  effect  of  soil  and 
climate  on  national  temperaments,  and  maintains  that  Europeans 
are  superior  to  Asiatics  because  of  the  harsher  climate  of  Europe. 
The  Hippocratics  may  claim  also  to  have  founded  the  study  of 
epidemiology.  Their  knowledge  of  the  distribution  of  epidemic 
diseases  by  seasons,  years,  and  climates,  the  progress  and  symp- 
toms of  these  manifestations  so  disturbing  to  public  morale,  is 
well  represented  in  Thucydides'  description  of  the  great  plague 
at  Athens.8 

NATURAL  SCIENCE 

Only  four  more  names  need  detain  us  in  our  study  of  ancient 
medicine.  The  Alexandrian  school  in  the  fourth  century  B.C. 
regularly  practiced  dissection  and  autopsy,  a  practice  which  is 
reflected  in  the  greater  realism  characterizing  sculpture  of  the 
period.  The  bolder  spirits  opened  the  bodies  of  criminals  in 
order  to  find  out,  if  possible,  the  secret  springs  of  life.  Among 
this  number  was  Herophilus,  a  keen  student  of  brain  structure, 
who  gave  his  name  to  one  sinus  —  the  winepress  of  Herophilus 
—  and  designated  the  hollow  in  the  fourth  brain  ventricle  as  "  the 
writer's  pen,"  a  term  which  it  still  bears.  Our  name  for  that  part 
of  the  intestine  which  follows  the  stomach,  the  duodenum,  mirrors 
Herophilus'  description  of  it  as  a  "twelve-finger  extension." 
Celsus,  in  the  first  century  before  or  the  first  century  after  Christ, 

8  Op.  cit.,  II,  47-53. 


NATURAL  SCIENCE 

wrote  a  vast  encyclopaedia  treating  of  philosophy,  law,  war, 
agriculture,  and  medicine.  The  parts  of  it  which  survive  cata- 
logue the  best  medical  and  surgical  practice  of  the  Alexandrian 
school  and  contain,  interestingly  enough,  a  description  of  methods 
for  extracting  and  wiring  teeth  and  an  account  o£  what  seems 
to  he  a  dental  mirror. 

Theophrastus,  a  pupil  of  Aristotle,  in  his  History  of  Plants 
framed  the  outlines  of  botany  as  a  serious  science.  Dioscorides, 
representing  the  tendency  of  the  first  century  A.D.  and  indeed 
of  all  later  ancient  science  to  emphasize  the  practical,  gave  to 
modern  botany  and  pharmacy  almost  its  entire  popular  and 
scientific  nomenclature.  In  other  words,  he  listed  and  named 
plants  mostly  with  reference  to  their  noxious  or  healing  powers 
as  drugs.  The  same  remark  applies  in  some  degree  to  Galen, 
who  flourished  during  the  second  century  A.D.  Though  Galen's 
importance  as  a  writer  on  historical  medicine  is  considerable,  his 
chief  influence  lay  in  the  fact  that  he  everywhere  emphasized 
design  in  nature.  Thus  he  appealed  to  scientists  of  a  theological 
turn  more  strongly  than  did  the  blunter  writers  of  the  older 
school.  In  his  own  practice,  Galen  dissected  dogs,  calves,  pigs, 
bears,  and  Barbary  apes,  often  drawing  wrong  analogies  between 
their  structure  and  that  of  man.  In  conclusion  it  may  be  said 
that,  while  Hippocrates  and  the  Alexandrians  raised  medicine  to 
the  level  of  a  profession,  the  art  suffered  severely  because  there 
was  never  in  antiquity  such  a  thing  as  a  license  to  practice.  One 
charlatan's  word  was  as  good  as  that  of  another  if  it  had  sufficient 
plausibility.  Hence  the  classic  jibe  about  the  undertaker  who 
turns  doctor  and  still  pursues  the  same  trade. 

The  beginnings  of  natural  history  as  a  science  are  found  in 
Aristotle.  Specifically  he  occupied  himself  with  dissecting  and 
classifying  shellfish.  His  whole  range  of  information  regarding 
ichthyology  needs  surprisingly  little  correction  in  the  light  of 
modern  science.  He  was  the  first  to  insist  that  the  student  of 
causes  who  attempts  to  track  out  nature's  law  may  find  in  the 
study  of  the  living  creatures  at  our  door  the  same  pleasure  which 
one  derives  from  gazing  at  a  beautiful  statue.  So  with  Aristotle 
the  Greek  instinct  for  beauty  and  order  found  the  same  expression 
in  science  that  it  elsewhere  did  in  literature  and  art. 


I44  GREEK  CULTURE 

GREEK  POLITICS  AND  EDUCATION 

Throughout  this  discussion  of  Greek  science  it  has  been  ap- 
parent that  the  ancient  world  gave  wide  scope  for  the  develop- 
ment of  the  individual,  at  least  the  male  individual.  We  can 
identify  comparatively  few  craftsmen  in  early  Egypt,  for  example, 
but  we  know  the  names  of  hundreds  of  Greek  authors,  musi- 
cians, painters,  and  sculptors.  The  signature  not  only  of  the 
painter  but  also  of  the  maker  appears  on  a  finished  Greek  vase. 
Herodotus  and  Thucydides  begin  their  histories  by  proudly  an- 
nouncing their  names  and  the  city  from  which  they  come.  The 
city  from  which  they  come  — the  phrase  is  all  important.  As  we 
trace  the  history  of  Panhellenism,  Athenian  nationalism,  Greek 
monarchy,  and  Panhellenic  culture,  we  become  increasingly 
aware  of  the  persistence  of  the  city-state  ideal. 

The  city-state,  an  outgrowth  of  the  walled  village  of  Homeric 
times,  was  the  focal  point  of  civilization  in  those  valleys,  rimmed 
off  securely  from  one  another  by  mountains,  which  make  up  the 
Balkan  peninsula.  The  smallness  and  independent  isolation  of 
these  towns  gave  a  special  turn  to  Greek  citizenship.  The  popula- 
tion, for  instance,  of  Attica,  the  territory  immediately  surround- 
ing the  city  of  Athens,  probably  consisted  in  431  B.C.  of  some 
200,000  free  souls  and  100,000  slaves.  Theoretically  at  least  not 
one  of  the  free  group  had  any  rights  as  an  individual  independent 
of  his  citizenship,  which  came  to  him  through  blood  membership 
in  a  Greek  tribe.  After  451  B.C.  citizenship  was  seldom  conferred 
on  foreigners  by  vote.  A  citizen  must  be  born  at  least  of  a  Greek 
father,  preferably  of  a  Greek  mother  as  well.  Ordinary  metics, 
or  resident  aliens,  could  neither  vote  nor  own  real  property.  For 
the  most  part  they  were  small  shopkeepers  and  hucksters,  or  en- 
gaged in  transportation  service. 

In  Homeric  times,  law  was  handed  down  to  kings  by  Zeus 
and  his  daughter  Themis.  During  the  classical  period,  the  law 
of  the  city-state  somewhat  similarly  represented  abstract  Justice. 
Under  this  law  each  citizen  must  live;  to  break  it  was  treason 
comparable  to  flouting  one's  parents.  The  Antigone  of  Sopho- 
cles defies  man-made  law  when  the  young  woman  buries  her 
brother  Polynices,  setting  at  naught  the  edict  of  King  Creon.  But 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  THE  CITY-STATE      J45 

there  she  is  following  the  older,  unwritten  code,  which  is  some- 
times felt  to  clash  with  the  edicts  of  a  tyrannical  human  sovereign. 
There  was  no  such  thing  as  international  law  in  ancient  Greece. 
The  codes  of  certain  cities  had  a  wide  influence;  Rhodian  sea- 
law  governed  common  maritime  practice;  but  law  was  always  in 
essence  that  of  the  individual  city-state. 

Hence  it  was  that  the  tribally  engendered  city-state,  with  its  full 
assembly  form  of  government,  with  its  dogged  insistence  on  au- 
tonomy, shaped  the  whole  course  of  Greek  history.  Athens  made 
a  strong  effort  during  and  shortly  following  the  Persian  War  to 
establish  a  Panhellenic  league,  but  it  soon  became  apparent  that 
she  aimed  at  open  imperialism.  Euripides  and  the  Greek  orators 
praised  the  beauty  and  the  unique  position  of  Athens  as  a  free 
defender  of  the  free,  as  a  refuge  for  the  distressed,  but  the  warring 
city-states  took  such  nationalistic  utterances  at  what  seemed  their 
face  value:  a  reflection  of  Athens'  desire  to  tyrannize  over  the  rest 
of  the  world. 

First  one  state  and  then  another  succeeded  to  the  leadership, 
though  not  to  the  unified  government  of  the  Greek  world.  Athens 
fell  a  victim  to  Sparta,  Sparta  in  turn  to  Thebes.  The  Chalcidic 
and  Boeotian  Leagues  worked  out  a  fairly  complete  form  of 
representative  government  on  the  basis  of  population,  taxation, 
and  military  strength,  but  these,  like  later  experiments  in  the 
same  direction,  came  too  late.  Isocrates  in  the  fourth  century 
urged  the  Greeks  to  unite  in  a  war  against  the  barbarians,  with 
Athens  as  leader,  and  yet  Isocrates  had  to  turn  eventually  with 
his  proposal  to  Philip  of  Macedon,  who  conquered  the  assembled 
Greeks  at  the  battle  of  Chaeronea  in  338  B.C.  The  stiff-necked 
city-states  refused  apparently  to  unite  under  any  other  govern- 
ment than  monarchy.  Even  so,  Philip  made  a  gesture  in  the 
direction  of  autonomy  when  he  organized  his  League  of  Hellenes. 

THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  THE  CITY-STATE 

Alexander  met  the  problem  by  the  political  expedient  of  having 
himself  deified.  The  distinction  between  god  and  man  in  Greece 
of  this  period  was  not  held  to  be  great.  The  measure  enabled 
Alexander  to  avoid  the  issue  of  local  self-government  and  declare 


GREEK  CULTURE 

himself  above  the  laws.  Then,  too,  Alexander  soon  swung  round 
from  the  Isocratic  notion  of  a  league  of  Hellenes  united  against 
the  barbarians  to  a  kind  of  cosmopolitanism  or  internationalism, 
the  conception  of  Greeks  and  barbarians  working  together  with- 
out distinction  for  the  dispersion  of  Hellenic  culture.  Isocrates 
had  declared  9  that  the  word  Greek  no  longer  designated  a  race, 
but  a  culture.  In  the  next  century  the  scientist  Eratosthenes  of 
Gyrene  said  that  one  no  longer  asked  whether  men  were  Greeks 
or  barbarians,  but  whether  they  were  good  or  bad. 

Many  factors  contributed  to  this  breaking  down  of  the  narrow 
limits  of  the  city-state,  such  as  the  growth  of  devotion  to  a  larger 
ideal  of  Hellenic  culture  and  with  it  the  development  of  an  almost 
modern  individualism.  As  causes  and  accompanying  results  we 
may  mention:  intermarriage  between  Greeks  and  barbarians; 
better  roads  and  improved  facilities  of  communication;  the  in- 
creasing use  of  cheap  papyrus  writing  material  for  the  spread  of 
knowledge  regarding  Hellas  and  the  Orient  in  Greek,  which 
had  now  become  the  universal  language;  the  growth  of  the 
syncretistic  spirit  in  religion,  which  made  it  perfectly  proper 
and  not  unusual  for  one  priest  to  serve  half  a  dozen  deities. 
Supremely  important  also  are  the  Stoic  doctrine  of  the  brother- 
hood of  man  and  the  activity  of  the  mystery  cults,  which  tended 
to  wipe  out  the  old  distinctions  between  male  and  female,  slave 
and  free,  Greek  and  barbarian.  Tradesmen,  somewhat  bewil- 
dered by  the  new  era  in  which  they  found  themselves,  took 
refuge  not  only  in  the  mystery  cults  but  also  in  guilds  or  unions, 
devoted,  without  reference  to  sex  or  creed  or  social  position,  to 
the  interests  of  a  single  profession  and  the  worship  of  a  single 
deity.  In  fourth-century  Athens,  the  ephebic  system  was  designed 
for  giving  military  training  to  young  Athenians  between  the  ages 
of  18  and  20.  During  the  Hellenistic  period,  membership  in  the 
ephebic  clubs  was  a  mark  not  of  Greek  blood,  but  of  social  dis- 
tinction. Thus  the  word  cosmopolitan,  first  used  in  the  fourth 
century  by  Diogenes,  the  Cynic  of  lantern  fame,10  became  a  living 
reality. 

This  new  spirit  manifested  itself  not  only  in  the  emergence 
of  dominating  personalities,  who  after  a  meteoric  career  sank 
9  Panegyric  on  Athens,  50.  10  Diogenes  Laertius,  VI,  63, 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  THE  CITY-STATE 

back  into  obscurity  leaving  only  popular  biographies  and  portrait 
busts  as  memorials,  but  also  in  the  emancipation  to  some  extent 
of  women  and  slaves.  In  Periclean  Athens  the  chief  virtues  of 
a  woman  were  thrift,  silence,  and  modesty.  A  woman's  duty 
was  to  manage  her  household  and  rear  sons  to  carry  on  the  family 
name  and  worship.  The  use  of  rouge  and  powder  was  an  offense 
not  only  against  modesty  but  against  nature.  In  the  courts  of  law 
a  woman  was  represented  by  her  husband.  Though  a  wife  could 
leave  the  home  of  her  married  partner  at  will,  she  must  return 
forthwith  to  the  head  of  the  house  from  which  she  came.  No 
formal  provision  was  made,  at  least  in  fifth-century  Athens,  for 
the  education  of  respectable  women;  it  must  be  remembered  that 
Aspasia,  the  charming  and  cultured  friend  of  Pericles  and  Socra- 
tes, was  a  courtesan.  A  prominent  Greek  lady  who  brought  a 
heavy  dower  might  spank  her  husband  with  a  slipper  to  bring 
him  round;  the  heroines  of  Greek  tragedy  are  standing  excep- 
tions to  the  meek  and  inarticulate  type;  but  for  the  most  part 
the  virtues  of  the  fifth-century  woman  are  those  of  the  harem. 

In  the  fourth  century,  however,  a  woman  was  among  the  stu- 
dents of  Epicurus.  During  Alexander's  lifetime  his  mother 
Olympias  enjoyed  unusual  influence  and  after  his  death  exercised 
unprecedented  power,  while  Alexander's  sister  gave  her  name  to 
the  important  city  of  Thessalonica.  This  is  due  in  some  measure 
to  the  survival  in  primitive  Macedonia  of  the  Homeric  attitude 
toward  women,  but  we  may  fairly  see  in  it  signs  that  during  the 
Hellenistic  period  the  so-called  weaker  sex  was  coming  into  its 
own.  At  this  time,  for  another  example,  city-states,  taking  over 
endowments  from  wealthy  men,  appointed  in  the  schools  deans 
or  rather  supervisors  of  women. 

Euripides  declared  that  nothing  but  the  name  made  a  vir- 
tuous slave  worse  than  a  free  man; xl  while  Philemon,  who  wrote 
in  the  fourth  century,  asserted  that  no  man  was  ever  born  a  slave 
by  nature.  Only  Fortune,  he  said,  has  placed  men  in  that  posi- 
tion. Plato  in  his  Republic  made  a  great  many  provisions  for  the 
amelioration  of  the  slave's  lot,  though  Aristotle  asserted  that  a 
slave  was  such  by  nature  and  represented  to  his  master  a  living 
piece  of  property.12  But  it  was  the  Stoic  conception  of  the 
11  Ion,  854.  12  Politics,  I,  4>  2- 


I48  GREEK  CULTURE 

brotherhood  of  man  which  more  than  anything  else  tended  to 
erase  the  distinction  between  slave  and  free.  In  the  true  spirit 
of  Christian  Stoicism  Paul  the  Apostle  advises  Philemon  to  re- 
ceive his  runaway  slave,  Onesimus,  as  a  beloved  brother.13 

The  State,  as  we  have  seen,  made  strong  claims  on  the  individ- 
ual; even  Alexander  founded  his  colonies  on  the  city-state  model; 
and  his  successors  who  threw  a  mesh  of  bureaucratic  government 
over  their  territories  organized  local  control  on  the  basis  of  the 
classical  polis.  In  fifth-century  Athens,  the  man  who  took  no 
part  in  the  endless  political  debates  so  popular  at  the  time  was 
held  to  be  good  for  nothing.14  It  might  be  necessary  to  round 
up  a  few  loafers  who  preferred  to  gossip  or  play  at  dice  in  the 
sunny  market  place  and  herd  them  into  the  assembly  with  a 
rope  dipped  in  red  paint,15  But  the  majority  attended  the  assem- 
bly faithfully  to  elect  magistrates  and  vote  on  questions  of  public 
policy.  Even  in  the  fourth  century  wealthy  citizens  bore  will- 
ingly the  old  burden  of  fitting  out  war-vessels,  training  and 
equipping  dramatic  choruses,  and  supplying  gymnasia  with  sand 
and  oil.  Yet  the  state  never  provided  by  taxation  for  the  support 
even  of  the  common  schools. 


GREEK  EDUCATION 

The  common  schools,  in  all  conscience,  offered  nothing  but 
instruction  in  the  three  R's  and  training  in  singing  and  harp-play- 
ing, accompanied  by  rigorous  gymnastic  exercise.  The  Sophists 
appeared  early  in  the  fifth  century  to  correct  this  situation.  Pri- 
marily they  were  traveling  teachers  of  oratory  in  an  age  when 
each  man  might  expect  at  some  time  to  defend  himself  in  the 
law-courts.  But  the  Sophists  were  much  more  than  teachers  of 
public-speaking;  they  conceived  that  the  duty  of  teaching,  founded 
on  the  sciences  of  grammar  and  dialectics,  or  the  ability  to  argue  on 
both  sides  of  any  proposition,  and  enriched  with  a  smattering 
of  physical  sciences,  history^  and  literature,  was  to  make  effective 
citizens.  Man,  they  declared,  is  the  measure  of  all  things;  good 
and  evil  are  relative.  It  may  be  wise  for  the  weak  man  to  know 

13  Philemon,  verse  16.  15  Aristophanes,  Acharnians,  22. 

14  Thucydides,  II,  40. 


GREEK  PHILOSOPHY  ^ 

and  keep  his  place,  but  the  strong  man  is  beyond  the  laws  which, 
like  the  State,  are  not  divine  in  origin,  but  mere  social  devices, 
the  inventions  of  the  weak  to  protect  themselves  against  the 
strong.  And  the  superman  by  right  o£  the  Law  of  Nature  may 
rule  and  exploit  the  weak.  Society  may  need  an  ethical  code 
based  on  justice  and  modesty  to  hold  it  together,  but  the  strong 
citizen,  the  man  with  nerve  and  a  mastery  of  the  art  of  persuasion, 
is  above  that  code. 

Socrates  was  no  Sophist,  though  like  them  he  held  that  education 
should  make  good  citizens.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  professed 
himself  the  wisest  of  men  only  because  he  was  conscious  of  know- 
ing nothing  —  while  other  men  had  a  conceit  of  knowledge  — 
he  combated  the  doctrine  of  relativity  and  maintained  that  truth 
is  attainable.  The  concepts  to  which  we  win  by  right  reasoning, 
the  Socratic  method  of  question  and  answer  based  on  Sophistic 
dialectic,  are  forever  valid.  Knowledge  can  be  won  and  imparted 
by  learning  and  teaching.  The  man  who  really  knows  the  Good 
will  do  it.  Education  does  not  imply  irreverence  for  the  tradi- 
tional morality  and  the  deities  of  the  city-state.  Protagoras  had 
asserted  that  he  could  not  be  sure  of  the  existence  of  the  gods. 
The  Athenians  only  banished  him  and  sent  round  a  herald  to 
collect  private-owned  copies  of  the  book  in  which  he  made  this 
statement  for  burning  in  the  market  place.16  Socrates  specifically 
disclaimed  all  belief  in  such  speculations  as  those  of  Anaxagoras. 
Blatant  agnosticism  was  foreign  to  his  nature;  he  asserted  always 
that  the  care  of  the  soul  was  his  chief  concern.  The  Athenians, 
confusing  him  with  both  the  Sophists  and  the  physical  scientists, 
gave  him  the  hemlock  because  he  introduced  new  gods  into  the 
city,  as  the  prosecution  asserted,  and  had  shown  himself  a  cor- 
rupter  of  young  men. 

GREEK  PHILOSOPHY 

Plato,  the  pupil  of  Socrates,  held  that  the  highest  good  consists 
not  in  pleasure  nor  in  knowledge,  but  in  the  utmost  possible 
likeness  to  God,  the  author  of  no  evil,  Himself  representing 
absolute  goodness.  Abstract  concepts  such  as  Justice  and  Good- 

16  Diogenes  Lacrtius,  IX,  51. 


150  GREEK  CULTURE 

ness  have  a  definite  reality  and  exist,  as  it  were,  in  the  heaven 
from  which  the  soul  originally  came.  They  stand  to  concrete 
objects  in  the  same  relation  as  the  shadows  of  objects,  thrown  by 
a  blazing  fire  on  the  wall  before  prisoners  so  chained  that  they  can- 
not look  round,  stand  to  the  objects  themselves.  Thus  in  his 
vision  of  the  cave 17  did  Plato  combat  the  "  flowing  "  philosophy 
of  Heraclitus  and  the  relativity  of  the  Sophists;  thus  he  asserted 
in  a  way  half  poetic  and  half  realistic  the  validity  of  the  uni- 
versal. Ideas  come  to  the  soul,  he  continues,  only  as  she  recol- 
lects what  she  has  known  in  the  bright  heaven  above  the  cave 
of  mortality.18 

Since,  then,  Virtue  and  Justice  are  realities  attainable  by  knowl- 
edge and  since  Happiness  consists  in  the  possession  of  the  Good, 
we  must  educate  our  citizens  in  an  ideal  State  where  society  and 
the  curriculum  are  so  framed  as  to  achieve  these  desirable  ends. 
The  three  classes  in  the  State,  philosopher-rulers,  warriors,  and 
producers,  are  to  be  sifted  out  in  the  process  of  education.  The 
old  Greek  curriculum  is  to  be  used  as  a  basis,  but  with  the  addi- 
tion of  dialectics  and  higher  mathematics,  the  rigorous  censorship 
of  myths,  and  the  exclusion  of  poetry  in  the  ordinary  sense  of 
that  word.  The  State,  in  Spartan  style,  is  to  control  completely 
the  rearing  and  education  of  citizen  children.  Among  the  phi- 
losopher-guardians, who  like  the  warrior-citizens  are  to  be  sepa- 
rated completely  from  the  producers  who  support  them,  all  things, 
including  wives,  must  be  held  in  common.  Women  as  such  are 
not  to  be  excluded  from  any  activity,  though  their  natural  en- 
dowments fit  them  for  certain  types  of  work  more  than  for  others. 
The  upper  classes  are  not  to  engage  in  commerce  or  handicraft 
other  than  agriculture.  Agricultural  surpluses  are  to  be  con- 
trolled by  the  State.  Neither  usury  nor  credit  business  nor  indeed 
the  possession  of  any  money  is  to  be  allowed  citizens. 

Such,  in  the  crudest  outline,  is  the  plan  by  which  Plato  hoped 
to  create  what  may  fitly  be  called  a  Kingdom  of  God.  He  held 
firmly  to  his  conviction  that  in  the  cause  of  virtue  one  ought 
rather  to  suffer  than  do  wrong.19  And  even  when,  somewhat 
disillusioned  by  contact  with  reality  in  the  form  of  a  weak  and 
refractory  pupil,  Dionysius,  the  tyrant  of  Sicily,  who  was  to  help 

17  Republic,  Bk.  VII.  is  pfaedrus,  250.  1&  Gorgias,  469  C. 


POLITICAL  THEORY  I5I 

Plato  set  up  a  model  State;  even  when  after  all  this  he  wrote  the 
Laws,  he  was  still,  though  he  makes  some  compromises  with 
practical  conditions,  convinced  that  government  will  never  be 
tolerable  until  philosophers  become  kings  or,  by  some  happy 
chance,  kings  become  philosophers.20 

Plato  makes  Socrates  prophesy  a  brilliant  future  in  philosophy 
for  young  Isocrates,21  but  the  facts  did  not  justify  that  prophecy. 
Philosophy,  in  the  definition  of  Isocrates,  is  little  more  than 
rhetoric  broadly  conceived.  Culture,  he  held,  consists  not  in  the 
possession  of  any  professional  technique  or  given  body  of  knowl- 
edge, but  in  trained  judgment.  The  educated  and  cultured  man 
is  the  temperate  citizen,  happy  in  his  relations  with  boors  and 
gentlemen  alike,  who  can  deal  effectively  with  the  problems  of 
daily  life  and  keep  his  head  in  both  adversity  and  prosperity. 
The  curriculum  of  Isocrates,  which  consisted  apparently  of  a 
blend  of  history,  natural  science,  and  literature  so  treated  as  to 
make  them  of  practical  value,  ordinarily  occupied  the  time  of 
students  for  three  or  four  years.  Not  only  the  pamphlets  of 
Isocrates  advocating  a  return  to  the  older  principles  of  Greek 
government,  uncontaminated  by  the  prevailing  mobocracy,  not 
only  his  educational  principles,  but  through  Cicero  his  elaborate 
style  had  an  immense  influence  on  politicians,  educators,  and 
literary  men  throughout  antiquity.22 

POLITICAL  THEORY 

Aristotle,  the  pupil  of  Plato,  declared  that  the  end  of  the  State 
is  to  promote  virtue  in  its  citizens,  and  that  the  State,  whose 
basis  is  the  family,  ranks  before  the  individual  as  a  whole,  takes 
precedence  over  the  parts  which  make  it  up.  Happiness,  he 
held,  is  the  chief  end  of  man  and  rational  happiness  may  best 
be  attained  by  the  individual  pursuing  the  traditional  Greek 
policy  of  observing  the  mean  between  two  extremes  within  the 
framework  of  a  modified  city-state.  The  model  State  in  training 
citizens  for  virtue  is  to  use  as  a  basis  a  curriculum  containing 
the  subjects  of  grammar,  gymnastics,  music,  and  drawing.  But 

20  Republic,  473  D.  22  Panathenaicus,  30;  Antidosis,  87. 

21  Phaedrus,  279. 


GREEK  CULTURE 

Aristotle's  chief  importance  lies  in  his  work  as  a  student  of 
political  forms  rather  than  as  a  reformer  of  Greek  education. 
As  a  prelude  to  his  Politics  he  analyzed  158  state  organizations. 
His  description  of  man  as  a  naturally  social  animal  is  of  course 
classic.  And  the  Aristotelian  division  of  government  into  delib- 
erative, executive,  and  judicial  departments  is  still  generally  in 

force. 

Plato  attempted  to  serve  as  adviser  to  Dionysius.  Isocrates,  as 
we  have  already  noted,  in  addition  to  criticizing  some  contem- 
porary tendencies  in  government,  helped  to  shape  the  policy  of 
King  Philip.  Aristotle  served  as  tutor  to  Alexander  the  Great. 
The  Stoics,  during  the  fourth  century  and  later,  emphasized  the 
dignity  and  importance  of  the  individual.  Man,  according  to 
their  teaching,  may  so  fortify  his  will  by  the  control  of  the  emo- 
tions as  to  rise  superior  to  all  the  whims  of  Fate;  and  every  man, 
without  regard  to  race  or  social  condition,  is  eligible  to  member- 
ship in  this  stern  brotherhood  of  wisdom.  Yet  the  Stoics  found 
it  not  only  possible  to  educate  monarchs,  but  also  to  serve  them- 
selves in  that  capacity,  little  as  the  monarchic  form  suited  their 
fine  theories.  The  Epicureans  stood  quite  outside  the  practical 
circle.  For  them  the  highest  happiness  of  man  as  individual,  a 
happiness  most  often  attained  by  the  pursuit  of  science,  was  the 
goal  of  life.  The  State— in  this  they  resembled  the  Sophists 
—  was  a  mere  social  convenience,  whose  ties  were  not  binding  on 
the  wise  man.  With  the  Cynics,  from  the  fourth  century  onward, 
philosophy  definitely  took  to  the  road.  In  a  "whither  are  we 
drifting  "  style,  their  voices  raised  to  the  sharp,  shrill  bark  which 
gave  them  the  name  of  Cynic  (dog)  philosophers,  these  militant 
missionaries  pointed  out  abusively  the  follies  of  contemporary 
rulers.  Unkempt,  unwashed,  insolent,  aggressive,  flouting  all 
governmental  and  social  conventions,  they  invited  men  to  lead 
life  according  to  nature,  with  the  earth  for  a  bed  and  the  sky 
for  a  covering.  The  Cynics  perhaps  most  fully  represented  that 
tendency  which  in  the  Hellenistic  period  made  chaplains  and 
missionaries  of  almost  all  philosophers. 

Christianity,  therefore,  fell  into  a  soil  well  prepared.  The  con- 
ception of  the  dignity  and  worth  of  the  individual  had  been  well 
established.  Philosophers  and  educators,  attempting  to  confirm 


THE  FORMS  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE        I53 

this  doctrine,  had  not  only  criticized  existing  forms  of  govern- 
ment, but  had  gone  far  beyond  them,  setting  up  ideal  States, 
Kingdoms  of  God,  world-wide  brotherhoods  which  completely 
transcended  the  narrow  limits  of  the  city-state.  To  men  over- 
whelmed with  a  sense  of  sin,  dissatisfied  with  or  oppressed  by 
temporal  government,  the  Greek  and  oriental  mystery  cults  had 
held  out  the  comforting  doctrine  of  a  savior-god,  a  being  both 
human  and  divine,  who  offers  humanity,  if  they  eat  his  body 
and  drink  his  blood,  if  they  emulate  his  sufferings  in  behalf  of 
God,  a  blessed  immortality  after  death. 

Jesus  of  Nazareth,  who  felt  himself  to  be  in  the  line  of  the 
Hebrew  prophets,  preached  the  gospel  of  a  reformed  and  quick- 
ened Judaism.  But  Paul,  the  greatest  Christian  missionary,  pre- 
sented his  gospel  of  the  Christ-cult,  the  distillation  of  his  own 
personal  experience,  in  language  highly  reminiscent  of  pagan  cult 
terminology.  His  use  of  the  word  "  conscience,"  certain  features 
of  his  ethical  code,  notably  the  insistence  on  "  self-sufficiency,"  and 
his  attitude  toward  slaves  were  colored  by  Stoicism.  St.  Am- 
brose literally  baptized  Stoic  ethics  into  Christianity,  while  St. 
Augustine  chiefly  through  neo-Platonism  was  profoundly  in- 
fluenced by  Platonic  teachings.  Paul,  in  his  organization  and 
administration  of  the  early  churches  owed  much  to  the  Roman 
system,  which  in  turn  was  in  the  debt  of  later  Hellenistic  govern- 
ment. And,  finally,  the  Mediaeval  Hierarchy,  with  its  recog- 
nition of  the  superior  claims  of  a  philosopher-priest  class,  carried 
on  further  toward  the  modern  age  the  structure  of  the  Platonic 
State. 

THE  FORMS  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE 

The  siren  charm  of  the  Greek  language  itself  is  perhaps  the 
thing  which  first  impresses  one  who  turns  from  Greek  thought 
to  literature  as  a  form  of  art.  Through  its  sharp,  clean  con- 
sonants and  many-voweled  adjectives,  through  its  clear,  logical 
structure,  the  Greek  language  at  the  highest  attains  a  beauty, 
a  compression,  a  simplicity  of  style  which  often  defy  translation. 
Cleopatra  spoke  the  language  of  the  Ethiopians  and  the  Troglo- 
dytes, of  the  Hebrews,  Arabs,  Syrians,  Medes,  and  Parthians.23 

23  Plutarch,  Life  of  Antony,  27. 


GREEK  CULTURE 

The  Greeks  concentrated  on  their  own  language,  for  ordinarily 
it  was  the  only  one  they  knew. 

Greek  literature  at  its  best  has  perfection  of  form  without 
rigidity,  a  firm  yet  perfectly  flexible  line  which  yields  simplicity 
and  nobility  without  baldness  or  bombast.  This  becomes  evident 
first  of  all  in  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  the  earliest  recorded 
Greek  poetry.  Having  to  deal  with  the  siege  of  Troy  and  the 
wanderings  of  Odysseus  in  the  Mediterranean,  Homer  does  not 
write  a  catalogue  in  alphabetic  style.  He  leaps  at  once  into  the 
midst  of  his  story,  which  deals  only  with  a  brief  part  of  the  full 
legend,  and  paints  in  his  background  as  he  goes  along.  The 
simplicity,  rapidity,  and  nobleness  of  Homer's  style,  his  ability  to 
portray  sentiment  without  lapsing  into  sentimentality,  in  short  the 
universal  appeal  of  his  work  have  made  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey 
veritable  bibles  of  literary  Europe  and  America  to  this  day. 
Homer  has  been  imitated  and  parodied,  admired  and  maligned. 
He  still  remains  the  fountain  source  of  all  European  literature. 

Later  Greek  epic,  still  written  in  the  Homeric  hexameter,  pro- 
duced its  greatest  figure  in  Hesiod,  the  Boeotian  farmer  of  the 
eighth  century  B.C.  Hesiod's  farmer  pessimism,  his  Franklinian 
emphasis  on  the  value  of  honesty  and  industry,  his  homely  good 
sense,  and  his  hatred  of  worthless  women  inform  alike  the 
Works  and  Days,  a  species  of  almanac  for  those  who  till  the  soil, 
and  the  Theogony,  a  work  on  the  birth  of  the  gods. 

During  both  the  sixth  and  the  fifth  centuries  B.C.  the  many- 
stringed  Greek  lyre  gave  forth  a  variety  of  intimate  and  highly 
personal  notes.  Alcaics,  Sapphics,  Archilochean  stanzas  inter- 
mixed with  the  sharp,  pungent  elegiac  distich  served  as  vehicles 
for  patriotic  exhortations,  satire,  epitaphs,  and  amorous  com- 
plaints. The  most  notable  poets  of  this  period  are  perhaps 
Sappho,  the  Lady  of  Lesbos,  whose  odes  summon  up  not  a  single 
passion  but  a  whole  congress  of  the  emotions,  and  Pindar,  the 
intimate  of  kings,  who  for  gold  wrote  odes  in  praise  of  athletic 
victors. 

GREEK  TRAGEDY 

One  special,  type  of  lyric,  the  dithyramb,  a  wild  and  frenzied 
hymn  addressed  to  Bacchus,  grew  into  the  chorus  of  Greek  tragedy. 


GREEK  TRAGEDY  I55 

By  steps  which  we  have  not  space  to  describe  it  came  to  form 
the  framework  of  Greek  drama.  Concerning  Aeschylus,  the 
lofty  and  austere,  whose  monotheism  approaches  that  of  Plato; 
regarding  Sophocles,  who  most  closely  approached  the  classic 
Greek  ideal  of  seeing  life  steadily  and  seeing  it  whole;  or  Eu- 
ripides, the  critic  of  traditional  Greek  religion,  the  champion  of 
women  and  slaves,  we  have  not  here  space  to  speak  in  detail 
Greek  tragedy,  perhaps  more  than  any  other  form  of  literary 
art,  succeeded  in  uniting  local  interest  and  comment  with  time- 
less appeal.  Political  satire  reached  its  height  with  Aristophanes. 
Never  had  the  stupid  general  and  the  militaristic  politician  been 
so  caustically  held  up  to  ridicule.  The  Agamemnon  of  Aeschylus, 
the  Oedipus  Tyrannus  and  Electra  of  Sophocles,  and  various 
dramas  of  Euripides  are  still  occasionally  produced  with  moderate 
success.  But  Aristophanes'  riotous  and  ribald  comedy,  the  Lysis- 
trata,  in  which  women,  disgusted  with  the  stupidity  and  pugna- 
ciousness  of  male  politicians,  take  the  government  into  their  own 
hands  and  forswear  relations  with  their  husbands  until  war  is 
renounced  and  peace  declared  —  this  comedy,  now  more  than 
two  thousand  years  old,  enjoyed  recendy  an  unprecedented  run 
during  a  crowded  Broadway  season. 

After  Aristophanes,  thanks  to  political  intervention,  comedy 
criticizing  characters  in  high  circles  came  to  an  end.  One  finds 
instead  the  beginnings  of  polite  society  farce  in  the  works  of 
Menander,  who,  with  others  of  his  contemporaries,  furnished 
models  for  skillful  Roman  adapters,  such  as  Plautus  and  Terence. 
Greek  tragedy  continued  to  be  written,  but  its  influence  was 
purely  that  of  a  literary  form  and  was  transmitted  to  the  "  blood 
and  thunder  "  school  of  Shakespearean  times  through  the  medium 
of  the  Roman  playwright  Seneca. 

Lyric  poetry  continued  to  be  written  in  almost  all  its  forms 
with  unabating  interest.  The  so-called  Greek  anthology  contains 
specimens  which  range  in  time  from  the  fifth  century  B.C.  to  the 
close  of  the  tenth  century  A.D.  Theocritus,  who  flourished  during 
the  third  century  B.C.,  is  usually  classified  as  a  pastoral  poet.  But 
no  man  can  be  more  lyric  than  he  in  describing  the  passion  of 
romantic  love;  no  one  describes  with  more  lyric  freshness  the 
town  and  the  country  life  of  his  day.  And  when  his  manuscripts 


I56  GREEK  CULTURE 

come  back,  rejected  by  a  wealthy  man  who  might  have  been  a 
patron,  not  even  a  Nobel  prize-winner  could  assail  more  vigor- 
ously the  money-loving  spirit  of  the  age.24 

In  oratory,  the  Greeks  developed  not  only  court-room  pleas, 
but  also  speech-writing  of  a  broader  national  scope.  For  the 
first  type,  Lysias'  initial  oration,  in  which  a  man  defends  himself 
against  the  charge  of  slaying  his  wife's  lover,  may  stand  as  an 
example.  Of  the  second,  Demosthenes'  speech  On  the  Crown, 
in  which  he  reviews  his  entire  political  career  and  justifies  his 
war  on  Philip  of  Macedon,  may  be  taken  as  the  finest  example. 
In  history,  Herodotus,  although  given  to  exaggeration,  endeav- 
ored to  tell  the  truth  as  he  heard  and  saw  it.  But  with  Thucydides 
we  come  to  a  scientific  historian  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  term. 
Critical  examination  of  sources,  searching  study  of  motives,  and 
sober  impartiality  are  found  welded  in  a  style  which  may  justify 
Thucydides'  claim  that  his  composition  was  destined  to  be  a 
possession  for  all  ages. 

GREEK  AESTHETICS 

In  literary  criticism,  the  Greeks  produced  two  classic  works 
—  the  Poetics  of  Aristotle  and  the  treatise  On  the  Sublime,  com- 
monly but  falsely  supposed  to  have  been  written  in  the  third 
century  AJ>.  by  the  rhetorician  Longinus.  The  Poetics  affords  not 
only  a  penetrating  study  of  Greek  drama  but  Aristotle's  famous 
definition  of  tragedy,  the  Catharsis,  a  form  calculated  to  purge  the 
spectator  of  pity  and  terror  by  arousing  these  emotions  within 
him.  Longinus'  adventures  as  he  ranges  through  the  Greek  and 
Hebrew  classics  in  quest  of  the  sublime  furnish  the  nearest  ap- 
proach to  impressionistic  criticism  that  the  Greeks  ever  made, 
although  the  author  declares  in  typically  Periclean  manner  that 
literary  judgment  is  the  result  of  long  toil. 

The  dialogue,  which  Plato  brought  to  inimitable  perfection,  was 
wedded  to  satire  in  the  second  century  A.D.  by  Lucian,  the  critic 
of  gods  and  human  charlatans  of  all  breeds,  the  father  of  the 
modern  sketch  and  short  story.  The  Greek  novel  offers  the 
charming  pastoral  romance  of  Daphnis  and  Chloe  and  more 

24  Idylls,  1 6. 


SECTION  OF  THE  "  PANATHENAIC  PROCESSION/*  FROM  A  FRIEZE  IN 
THE  PARTHENON 


THE  "FATES/*  FROM  THE  EASTERN  PEDIMENT  OF  THE  PARTHENON 
(facing  page  157) 


GREEK  AESTHETICS 

prosaic  stories  of  adventure  in  which  sentimental  heroines  swoon 
their  way  through  unspeakable  temptations  on  land  and  sea  into 
the  arms  of  impossibly  perfect  heroes. 

The  Greek  sense  of  beauty  expressed  itself  not  only  in  poetry 
and  painting,  sculpture  and  architecture,  but  also  in  a  wealth  of 
smaller  forms  such  as  coins  fine  as  rare  etchings,  charming  terra- 
cottas such  as  the  Tanagra  figurines,  jewels,  engraved  gems,  and 
even  the  common  utensils  of  everyday  life.  The  history  of  Greek 
sculpture  from  the  athletic  grace  of  Myron's  Discus  Thrower  to 
the  sensuous  charm  of  the  Praxitelean  Hermes,  from  the  magnifi- 
cence of  Pheidias'  Olympian  Zeus  to  the  painfully  human  agonies 
of  the  Laocoon  group  reveals  alike  the  versatility  and  vitality  of 
the  Greek  genius.  One  who  stands  today  on  the  Acropolis  under 
the  Parthenon's  sober  Doric  form  and  glances  across  the  way 
to  the  more  effeminate  Ionic  of  the  Erechtheum  or  looks  up  at  the 
light  Corinthian  charm  of  the  Lysicrates  Monument  in  the  city 
below  will  gather  living  proofs  of  the  Greek  genius  in  all  its 
power  and  variety. 


CHAPTER  VII 
ROMAN  CIVILIZATION 


GREECE  AND  ROME 

IT  WAS  THE  DESTINY  OF  ROME  TO  DEVELOP  IN  HISTORICAL  PARAL- 
lel  to  Greece  and  to  counterbalance  culture  with  civilization. 
Speaking  in  a  broad,  psychological  manner,  we  may  refer  to 
Greece  as  having  developed  the  intellect;  Rome,  the  will;  just 
as  the  former  nation  has  given  us  our  theory,  the  latter  our  practi- 
cal principles  o£  life.  Greek  democracy  has  survived  the  on- 
slaughts of  Roman  and  Hun,  Turk  and  Italian,  and  is  still  a 
living  thing.  Greek  continued  to  be  the  international  language 
'  of  the  Roman  world  perhaps  as  late  as  the  third  century  A.D., 
but  with  the  emergence  of  Christianity  as  the  official  religion  of 
the  Roman  Empire,  Latin  tended  more  and  more  to  become  the 
dialect  of  government  and  theology  in  the  western  world,  the 
lingua  franca  of  administrators  and  of  scholars,  if  not  of  the  mass 
of  common  people.  Greek  went  into  retirement  at  Constan- 
tinople and  did  not  come  out  of  hiding,  as  far  as  cultured  Europe 
was  concerned,  until  the  Turks  captured  that  city  in  1453,  al- 
though isolated  scholars  had  known  and  had  taught  Greek  before 
that  time. 

When,  in  the  Vth  century,  Rome  "  fell,"  as  we  are  in  the  habit 
of  saying,  the  torch  of  culture  was  caught  up  by  the  Latin- 
speaking  and  Latin-writing  peoples  in  Africa,  handed  over  to 
Spain,  carried  even  before  that  time  with  Christianity  to  Ireland, 
thence  to  Britain,  France,  Germany,  and,  at  length,  once  more 
to  Italy.  Then,  nourished  by  the  Catholic  Church,  pagan  culture 
became  enmeshed  in  Christian  tradition,  preparing  the  way  for 
the  culture  of  Scholasticism. 

The  process  of  transmission  went  on  during  the  period 
between  500  and  1200  A.D.,  when  modern  nations  were  being 
molded,  not  only  by  direct  survival,  but  also  by  learned  and 
conscious  revival.  The  nations  which  were  to  be  French,  Spanish, 
and  Italian  adopted  and  adapted  in  pronunciation  and  syntactical 

158 


ROMAN  RELIGION 

structure  the  Latin  language  of  those  who  had  conquered  them 
and  whom  they  in  turn  conquered.  While  popular  authors  were 
writing  literature  of  many  forms  in  vulgar  Latin  or  later  in  that 
type  of  modified  popular  Latin  which  was  the  vernacular,  learned 
men  were  striving  to  perpetuate  the  ancient  tongue  in  Ciceronian 
purity. 

Greek  culture  would  not,  perhaps,  have  been  handed  down  in 
this  manner  had  it  not  been  for  what  we  may  justly  call  the 
Roman  superiority-inferiority  complex.  Others,  says  Virgil,1 
may  prove  better  artists  and  orators  than  the  Romans.  Others 
may  excel  them  in  science.  But  the  real  task  of  Rome  is  to  rule 
the  nations  of  the  world.  Her  arts  are  to  crown  peace  with  law, 
to  spare  the  conquered  and  subdue  in  war  the  proud.  There, 
quite  moderately  stated,  one  has  the  Roman  attitude.  Culture 
is  essentially  Greek;  so  too  is  pure  science.  Rome  admits  the 
mastery  of  the  "  Greeklings  "  in  these  fields,  is  even  willing  to 
imitate  and  adapt  their  original  creations. 

But  after  all,  culture  of  this  sort  is  for  leisure  moments;  pre- 
occupation with  it  is  below  the  dignity  of  a  busy,  governing  race. 
Rome's  main  concern  is  with  government,  and  there  she  knows 
no  master.  Cicero  in  his  fifth  Verrine  oration  affects  to  despise 
or  even  to  be  ignorant  of  Greek  art;  elsewhere  2  he  asserts  that 
Greek  laws  are  absurd  compared  to  the  Roman.  We  shall  find 
in  the  course  of  this  chapter  that,  while  Rome  adapted  and  made 
her  own  the  Greek  contributions  in  religion,  philosophy,  and 
science,  in  literature  and  art,  she  gave  most  to  the  world  in  the 
spheres  of  law  and  government.  From.  Rome  came  that  strong 
central  organization  which  preserved  the  world  from  chaos  even 
when  bearded  barbarians  in  the  skins  of  wild  animals  ran  riot 
over  the  Empire,  and  which  helped  to  mold  the  national  systems 
under  which  Graeco-Roman  culture  was  transmitted  to  the 
modern  age. 

ROMAN  RELIGION 

Primitive  Roman  religion,  the  cult  of  home  and  farm  which 
afterwards  crystallized  into  the  cult  of  the  State,  was  almost 
wholly  mundane  in  its  point  of  view.     Supernatural  beings, 
1  Aeneid,  VI,  847-853.  2  De  Oratore,  I,  44  <*  &%• 


j5o  ROMAX  CIVILIZATION 

"  wills  "  or  "  powers  "  (numina),  were  held  to  exist  in  trees  and 
rocks  and  springs  and  animals.  Special  spots,  places  struck 
by  lightning,  the  tombs  of  the  dead,  were  held  in  religious  awe 
and  veneration,  though  actual  ghost-worship  cannot  perhaps  be 
certainly  proved  for  the  Romans.  Spirits  haunted  farm  and 
woodland,  invested  with  their  own  peculiar  character  the  hearth 
and  cupboard  and  doorway  of  the  Roman  house.  The  business 
of  religion  was,  by  the  preservation  of  certain  taboos,  by  the  per- 
formance of  sacrifice  and  a  ritual  meticulously  observed,  to 
placate  and  please  or  drive  away  these  mysterious  beings,  not  to 
embody  them  after  the  Greek  manner  in  the  gorgeous  vestments 
of  poetry  and  myth. 

The  father  of  the  Roman  family,  who  is  the  priest,  enters,  so 
to  speak,  into  a  contract  with  the  gods.  He  gives  to  them  that 
he  may  receive  in  turn.  If  he  offers  unsuitable  victims,  trips  or 
stumbles  in  uttering  the  formular  prayers,  the  gods  need  not  keep 
their  part  of  the  bargain.  This  business-like  spirit,  this  tendency 
to  observe  and  regard  the  letter  of  a  compact,  entered. naturally 
into  Roman  Law,  for  the  priests  of  Rome  were  also  its  earliest 
lawyers.  Even  after  the  primitive  agricultural  community  had 
come  to  center  round  the  city  of  Rome,  the  old  festivals  were 
retained.  The  boundaries  of  the  land  were  still  sprinkled  and 
sacrifice  made  about  them  at  the  end  of  May  in  a  spot  a  few  miles 
outside  the  metropolis. 

The  father  of  the  family  became  in  Roman  state  religion  the 
king,  or  later  the  high  priest,  a  position  held  during  the  Empire 
by  the  emperor  alone.  The  Pontifex  Maximus  was  assisted  by 
various  priests  and  diviners.  Vestal  Virgins  kept  the  fire  of  Rome 
alight  on  the  city  hearth.  Each  important  deity  had  flamens 
charged  with  perpetuating  the  ancient  rites.  The  precise  form 
of  these  ceremonies  was  intrusted  to  the  "  priestly  books  "  and 
kept  a  profound  secret.  Prayers  to  be  said  in  time  of  birth  or 
marriage,  formulas  for  the  beginning  of  all  sorts  of  work,  par- 
ticularly agricultural,  were  also  contained  in  these  volumes. 
There  one  might  find  the  names  of  those  abstract  deities,  those 
little  gods  and  goddesses  who  watched  over  the  sleeping  child, 
taught  it  to  eat  and  drink,  strengthened  it  to  stand,  walk  and 
talk,  and  in  general  accompanied  it  from  birth  to  the  grave. 


ROMAN  DEITIES  l^I 

Briefly  speaking,  the  Roman  found  in  the  state  religion  the  com- 
plete exemplification  of  that  "divine  law"  by  which  he  might 
live  at  peace  with  the  gods. 

The  old  religion  offered,  it  is  true,  some  colorful  spectacles. 
During  February  the  flamen  of  Jupiter  sacrificed  in  turn  he-goats 
and  a  dog.  Two  youths,  who  had  been  smeared  with  goat's 
blood  on  the  blade  of  a  knife,  cleansed  themselves  with  milk- 
soaked  sponges  of  wool  and  went  dancing  round  the  city  clad 
only  in  a  goat-skin  apron.  The  women  they  met  they  struck 
with  thongs  of  the  skin  to  ward  off  barrenness  and  insure  fertility. 
During  another  festival,  the  Saturnalia,  all  Rome  held  holiday. 
Slaves  enjoyed  for  once  complete  license  of  speech.  Candles  were 
lighted  and  presents  exchanged  by  men  and  women  of  all  classes. 
Thus  in  the  December  carnival  of  eating  and  drinking  was  the 
role  of  good  old  King  Saturn  brought  back. 

ROMAN  DEITIES 

But  the  good  old  days  of  Saturn  came  back  only  in  mimicry. 
Actually  metropolitan  Rome,  in  touch  during  the  Punic  Wars 
for  the  first  time  with  foreign  vice  and  luxury,  needed  gods  more 
personal  and  strong  to  save  them  than  the  powers  of  the  primitive 
religion.  As  early  as  the  fifth  century  B.C.  Greek  and  Etruscan 
influences  began  to  enter  the  stream  of  Roman  religious  practice. 
The  Greek  pantheon  was  gradually  adapted  to  Roman  needs. 
Roman  gods  were  identified  with,  or  at  least  took  on  names  and 
epithets  which  tended  to  identify  them  with  their  Greek  counter- 
parts. Jupiter  stood  for  ancient  Zeus,  Juno  for  Hera,  Neptune 
for  Poseidon,  Mercury  for  Hermes,  and  Venus  for  Aphrodite. 
With  Greek  gods  entered  the  Greek  ritual,  always  carefully 
distinguished  from  the  Roman,  and  the  Hellenic  custom  of  pray- 
ing with  head  uncovered,  so  strange  at  first  to  the  men  of  Rome. 
By  the  year  399  B.C.  the  statues  of  the  gods,  after  the  Hellenistic 
mode,  were  placed  at  banquet  on  couches  in  a  public  place  so 
that  the  whole  populace,  keeping  festival,  might  dine  with  them. 

Along  with  the  other  new  deities  whom  merchants  and  crafts- 
men, artists  and  slaves  brought  in,  came  Diana  of  Aricia,  that 
Diana  whose  priest,  the  King  of  the  Wood,  was  a  runaway  slave. 


ROMAN  CIVILIZATION 

a  slave  who  held  rule  only  until  a  stronger  man  slew  him  and 
took  his  place.  Etruscan  diviners  instructed  the  Romans  in 
temple  practice  and  the  art  o£  interpreting  omens  drawn  from 
the  flash  of  lightning,  the  vitals  of  victims,  the  flight  of  birds. 

But  more  than  anything  else  the  influx  of  partly  Hellenized 
oriental  deities  filled  the  needs  of  a  war-torn,  almost  hysterical 
populace  and  contributed  to  the  breakdown  of  the  old  Roman 
religion.  At  the  command  of  a  Sibylline  Oracle,  when  nothing 
else  could  drive  off  the  menacing  Hannibal,  the  fetish-stone  of 
the  Great  Mother  Cybele  was  brought  from  Galatia  in  204  B.C. 
A  Greek  priest  carried  to  Etruria  the  rites  of  the  baser  Bacchus. 
The  orgies  which  ensued  throughout  Italy,  among  even  the  high- 
est classes,  led  the  Senate  in  186  B.C.  to  pass  a  decree  stamping 
out  the  vinous  heresy.3  At  almost  the  same  time  that  Cybele 
brought  to  Rome  her  ceremony  of  blood,  her  mourning  for  the 
death  and  rejoicing  for  the  resurrection  of  the  mutilated  Attis  so 
curiously  akin  to  our  own  Easter  festival,  Egyptian  Isis  invaded 
Roman  territory,  and  there  remained,  though  her  temples  were 
often  destroyed  and  her  priests  slandered  and  persecuted.  Pom- 
pey  the  Great  scoured  the  hills  of  Cilicia  for  pirates  and  cap- 
tured them,  but  the  prisoners  whom  he  carried  to  Rome  in  67  B.C. 
brought  along  the  worship  of  Persian  Mithra,  which  well-nigh 
captured  the  Empire.  Thus,  through  one  channel  or  another, 
the  various  immortality  cults  which  centered  round  a  god-man, 
had  solidly  established  themselves  on  Roman  soil  by  the  middle 
of  the  first  century  B.C. 

The  emperor  Augustus,  thrusting  his  hand  into  the  dike,  at- 
tempted to  check  this  oriental  river  and  revive  the  old  Roman 
religion,  through  edict  and  organized  literary  propaganda  and 
personal  effort.  He  restored  eighty-two  temples  in  or  near  Rome 
and  infused  life  into  the  old  priesthoods.  On  the  Palatine  he 
built  a  resplendent  new  temple  of  his  family  god,  Apollo,  as 
well  as  a  costly  shrine  to  Vesta,  and  in  his  forum  he  erected  a 
fane  to  Mars,  the  avenger  of  the  death  of  Julius  Caesar.  Though 
he  never  allowed  himself  formally  to  be  worshiped  as  a  god  in 
Italy  during  his  lifetime,  he  was  hailed  by  the  East  as  a  deity 
before  his  death,  and  following  it  the  cult  of  Augustus  as  a  man- 

3  Livy,  Ab  Urbe  Condita  Libri,  XXIX,  8-19. 


ROMAN  PHILOSOPHY 

god  was  put  in  charge  of  a  special  group  of  priests.  Augustus 
could  hardly  have  rested  easy  in  heaven  had  he  known  that  a  few 
centuries  later  another  cult,  whose  King  partook  of  the  nature 
of  Hebrew  prophet,  man-god,  and  god-man,  would  use  the  im- 
perial organization  which  the  first  emperor  built  up  to  spread  its 
influence  throughout  the  western  world. 

ROMAN  PHILOSOPHY 

Rome's  first  formal  contact  with  Greek  philosophy  dates  from 
the  year  155  B.C.  when  there  came  from  Athens  an  embassy  in- 
cluding Diogenes  the  Stoic,  Critolaus  the  Peripatetic,  and  Car- 
neades  the  Academic,  The  Roman  Senate,  particularly  in  the 
person  of  old-fashioned  Cato,  objected  to  Greek  teachings,  and 
a  few  years  after  the  embassy  foreign  philosophers  and  rhetori- 
cians were  by  decree  expelled  from  Rome.  But  their  influence 
remained.  The  literary  circle  surrounding  the  younger  Scipio, 
which  numbered  among  others  Terence,  the  writer  of  comedy, 
undertook  about  this  time  the  regular  study  of  philosophy. 
Their  special  mentor  was  Panaetius  the  Stoic,  whose  common- 
sense  teaching  with  regard  to  virtue  anticipates  the  popularizing 
of  Seneca.  After  Panaetius  came  Posidonius,  who  was  the  teacher 
of  Cicero. 

By  direct  tradition,  then,  as  well  as  by  reason  of  its  suitability 
to  the  gravity  and  piety  of  the  Roman  temperament,  Stoicism  be- 
came the  unofficial  philosophy  of  Rome.  Enough  has  been  said 
in  the  preceding  chapter  about  the  Epicureans  to  show  that  their 
quest,  untroubled  by  the  claims  of  public  life,  for  purely  personal 
pleasure  was  thoroughly  uncongenial  to  the  Roman  temperament. 
Those  persons  who,  misled  by  too  attentive  a  reading  of  Petronius, 
Juvenal,  and  Suetonius,  imagine  that  every  Roman  spent  his  time 
careering  from  tavern  to  tavern,  with  a  trull  under  one  arm  and 
a  wine  bottle  under  the  other,  forget  that  Rome  had  an  empire 
to  govern.  They  forget  that  Petronius  depicts  the  luxury  and 
vice  of  the  new  age  in  the  person  of  a  wealthy  freedman;  they 
do  not  remember  that  all  Roman  noblemen  were  not  so  degen- 
erate as  those  whom  Juvenal  portrays;  they  forget  that  the  Stoic 
virtues  of  dignity,  gravity,  and  piety,  the  love  of  country  and 


jg4  ROMAN  CIVILIZATION 

family  had  always  been  and  continued  in  some  degree  to  remain 
thoroughly  Roman. 

Cicero,  who  was  the  chief  Latin  transmitter  of  Greek  philoso- 
phy to  the  modern  world,  professes  himself,  indeed,  to  be  an 
eclectic.  For  that  matter,  he  declares 4  that  his  works  are  only 
copies  of  Greek  originals;  all  he  adds  is  words,  in  which,  to  use 
his  own  phrase,  "  I  abound."  In  reality  Cicero  was  a  Stoic  on  the 
side  of  morals  and  an  Academic  on  the  side  of  the  intellect.  Lu- 
cian  5  hits  off  in  a  happy  sentence  the  popular  opinion  of  both 
Academics  and  Stoics.  When  he  and  his  companions  in  the 
course  of  their  famous  nightmare  journey  arrive  at  the  Island  of 
the  Blest  and  inquire  for  the  philosophers,  they  find  neither  the 
Academics  nor  the  Stoics.  The  Academics,  suspending  judgment 
and  debating  endlessly,  are  stalled  on  the  road  — they  cannot 
make  up  their  minds  whether  there  is  such  a  place  as  the  Island 
of  the  Blest.  The  Stoics  are  still  climbing  the  steep  hill  of  virtue 
and  have  not  arrived  yet. 

Now  the  Stoicism  which  Cicero  and  other  Romans  embraced 
was  not  the  almost  ludicrous  pedantry  of  the  earlier  school.  The 
typical  sage  of  that  breed,  the  man  who  had  attained  wisdom  by 
suppressing  his  emotions  and  living  according  to  nature's  law, 
was  a  creature  as  impossible  as  the  "  sanctified  "  Christian  who 
cannot  fall  from  grace.  The  Stoicism  popular  in  Rome  was  the 
type  described  so  fully  by  Seneca,  the  tutor  of  Nero  in  the  first 
century  A.D.  The  human  soul,  said  the  Stoics,  is  a  part  of  or  an 
emenation  from  deity.  And  deity,  whether  one  identifies  him 
with  Zeus  who  thunders  on  high  or  with  the  all-pervading 
breath  of  creative  fire,  contains  the  soul  and  reason  of  all  things; 
he  contains  within  himself  the  rational  germs  of  the  whole  uni- 
verse. Now  since  every  man  contains  a  part  of  the  divine  fire, 
and  since  all  men  are  brothers  and  sons  of  the  same  God,  it 
follows  that  man  exists  for  and  must  take  part  in  society,  though 
that  involves  a  certain  amount  of  compromise  with  the  prevailing 
form  of  government. 

Life  itself  is  an  inn  where  we  tarry  overnight.  Life  is  a  battle- 
field on  which  the  forces  of  good  and  evil  clash  continually.  The 
wise  campaigner  will  not  only  dress  in  coarse  raiment  and  eat 
4  Letters  to  Atticus,  XII,  52.  5  True  History,  II,  18, 


LATIN  SCIENCE  ^ 

scant  food,  but  also  keep  himself  in  mental  trim  by  guarding 
against  random  thoughts  and  emotions.  Especially  will  he  come 
to  Philosophy,  the  physician  of  the  soul,  the  great  healer  whose 
ministrations  are  open  to  all  men  willing  to  practice  meditation 
and  self-discipline.  But  above  all  else  the  wise  man,  or  the  man 
striving  for  wisdom,  will  lean  on  the  Divine  Providence  which 
is  seen  everywhere  in  the  world,  which  is  mirrored  faintly  even  in 
the  conventional  mythology.  Where  the  Divine  Will  leads,  the 
wise  man,  making  progress  in  virtue,  must  follow  obediently,  even 
though  the  road  conducts  him  to  death.  And  if  a  man  feels  that 
he  has  lost  control  of  the  threads  of  his  life,  if  he  is  mocked  by 
Fate,  he  may  assume  control  again  for  one  last  time  and  commit 
suicide,  assured  that,  while  the  soul  may  not  be  immortal,  it  will 
at  least  endure  until  the  present  world-cycle  is  ended  in  fire  and 
makes  way  for  the  next. 

Roman  religion  gave  to  Christianity  the  very  word  "  religion  " 
and  its  consecrated  terms, "  piety  "  and  "  saint  "  and  "  sacrament," 
became  a  part  of  the  Church's  heritage.  The  contributions  of 
Stoicism  have  already  been  pointed  out  in  the  preceding  chap- 
ter. But  by  and  large  Roman  religion  in  itself  had  no  universal 
appeal.  Stoicism  called  mostly  to  the  upper  classes.  Both  owe 
any  broad  influence  they  may  have  exercised  to  their  blending  in 
the  curious  tapestry  which  we  call  Christianity. 

LATIN  SCIENCE 

Rome  produced  neither  a  great  philosopher  nor  an  original 
scientist.  Her  writers  in  the  latter  field  tend  either  to  copy  Greek 
works  directly,  to  reject  Hellenic  science  entirely  and  rely  on  the 
lowest  kind  of  magical  practice,  or  finally  to  vitiate  scientific  study 
by  a  tendency  to  see  design  everywhere  in  nature  and  to  bear 
down  too  heavily  on  the  ethical  pedal.  To  the  first  class  belong 
Lucretius,  the  poet,  and  Celsus,  the  Roman  patrician,  whom  we 
have  mentioned  in  the  foregoing  chapter. 

One  thinks  of  Lucretius  primarily  as  a  literary  artist  of  the  first 
rank.  But  in  reality  his  poem  On  the  Nature  of  Things  is  a  setting 
forth  in  Latin  hexameters  of  the  Epicurean  world-system.  The 
Epicurean  assumption  that  the  world  was  formed  by  a  fortuitous 


ROMAN  CIVILIZATION 

concourse  of  swerving  and  clashing  atoms,  borrowed  in  part  from 
Democritus  and  Leucippus,  is  a  fascinating  anticipation  of  mod- 
ern atomic  theories,  though  Dalton  in  the  XlXth  century 
seems  to  have  worked  independently.  Intriguing  also  is  Lucretius' 
statement,  when  describing  the  great  plague  at  Athens  toward  the 
close  of  his  poem,  that  there  are  seeds  which  bring  good  and  seeds 
which  bring  evil  and  disease  to  men.  Here,  as  in  a  mirror  darkly, 
one  sees  modern  bacteriology.  From  his  Greek  original  likewise 
Lucretius  takes  the  notions  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  and  the 
growth  of  higher  human  from  lower  animal  forms.  Extant  re- 
mains of  the  Epicurean  writings  show  how  faithfully  Lucretius 
translated  and  adapted  his  master.  Lucretius'  missionary  zeal,  his 
burning  desire  to  free  men  from  the  burden  of  superstition  and 
set  them  to  investigating  the  causes  of  things,  coupled  with  his 
mastery  of  Latin  verse,  gives  him  high  position  as  a  poet,  but  he 
cannot  claim  to  be  an  original  thinker  any  more  than,  on  a  lower 
scale,  Celsus,  the  compiler  and  adapter  of  Greek  medical  works. 

To  the  second  group  belongs  the  reactionary  Marcus  Porcius 
Cato,  who  died  in  149  B.C.,  fifty  years  before  the  birth  of  Lucretius. 
His  work  on  agriculture,  which  is  marked  throughout  by  an  un- 
compromisingly old-fashioned  Roman  attitude  toward  experi- 
mental science,  preserves  not  only  a  recipe  for  making  cheese-cake, 
but  also  one  of  the  most  curious  and  tantalizing  of  spells  for 
curing  dislocation.  One  can  almost  see  the  sufferer  hopping  about 
and  hear  him  cursing  as  his  voice  rises  to  a  shriek  in  the  magic 
words:  " Huat  hanat  huat  ista  pista  sista  domiabo  damnaustra" 

In  the  last  group  fall  Pliny  the  Elder,  who  perished  while  in- 
vestigating an  eruption  of  Vesuvius  in  79  A.D.,  and  Seneca,  the 
tutor  of  Nero.  The  thirty-seven  books  of  Pliny's  so-called  Natural 
History  are  encyclopedic  in  their  scope,  embracing  the  subjects 
of  cosmology,  geography,  anthropology,  zoology,  botany,  medi- 
cine, mineralogy,  and  art.  But  the  modern  reader  will  be  more 
interested  in  the  grotesque  and  utterly  delightful  superstitions 
which  Pliny  catalogues  than  in  what  passes  with  him  for  science 
or  his  monotonous  insistence  on  the  fact  that  nature  serves  man. 
Seneca's  Naturales  Quaestiones,  investigations  into  various  prob- 
lems connected  with  natural  science,  represents  a  distinct  advance 
on  Pliny  in  the  matter  of  accuracy.  Seneca  is  less  gullible  than 


ROMAN  MEDICINE  ^ 

Pliny,  but  he  insists  always  on  the  ethical  implications  of  scientific 
study,  an  attitude  fatal  to  real  progress.  Marcus  Terentius  Varro, 
who  -helped  Julius  Caesar  catalogue  the  vast  collection  of  books 
in  Rome,  was  a  philologian  and  antiquary  rather  than  a  scientist. 
Among  other  things  he  marked  out  more  clearly  than  had  been 
done  before  the  subjects  of  the  curriculum.  These  he  designated 
as :  grammar,  dialectic,  rhetoric,  geometry,  arithmetic,  astronomy, 
music,  medicine,  and  architecture.  All  save  the  last  two,  we  may 
add,  became  part  of  the  consecrated  mediaeval  course  of  study. 

ROMAN  MEDICINE 

Greece  had  employed  state  physicians  in  the  early  fifth  century 
B.C.  The  Romans  extended  and  perfected  the  system.  Not  only 
were  state  physicians  recognized  during  the  late  Empire  as  a  tax- 
exempt  group  whose  duties  consisted  chiefly  in  ministering  to  the 
poor,  but  medical  men  were  organized  into  schools  and  coUeges  in 
various  parts  of  the  Empire  and  halls  were  provided  for  teaching 
purposes.  Each  Roman  legion,  each  group  of  policemen,  firemen, 
and  city-guards  in  Rome  had  an  attending  physician,  who  held 
the  rank  of  non-commissioned  officer. 

In  Greece  surgeries  were  privately  owned,  though  the  temples 
of  Asclepius  were  open  to  rich  and  poor  alike  and  were  of  a  more 
public  character.  During  the  early  part  of  the  first  century  AJ>. 
the  temple  of  Asclepius  on  a  ship-shaped  island  in  the  Tiber  be- 
came the  refuge  for  sick  and  broken-down  slaves.  This  curious 
island,  on  which  was  carved  the  poop  of  a  ship,  bearing  the  staff 
and  serpent  and  a  likeness  of  the  head  of  Asclepius,  was  offi- 
cially recognized  as  a  slave-asylum  when  the  emperor  Claudius 
freed  those  who  had  taken  shelter  there.  Infirmaries  of  other 
kinds  for  the  use  of  free  and  slave  alike  existed  during  the  first 
century  A  j>.  By  the  end  of  the  first  or  the  beginning  of  the  second 
century,  fully  equipped  free  hospitals  were  known.  These  owed 
much  in  organization  and  arrangement  to  the  military  dressing- 
stations.  At  first  it  was  customary  to  ship  wounded  soldiers  to 
Rome  for  treatment;  later,  military  hospitals  were  founded  at 
various  convenient  points.  To  the  period  of  the  late  first  or  early 
second  century  A  J>.  belongs  the  building  which  has  been  excavated 


ROMAN  CIVILIZATION 

at  Dusseldorf  on  the  Rhine.  This  is  constructed  in  the  modern 
manner,  with  offices  and  a  vestibule  in  front,  wards  and  corridors 
on  the  sides,  and  a  dining  room  in  the  middle. 

During  the  earlier  days  of  Rome,  physicians  were  either  slaves 
or  freemen  relegated  to  an  extremely  insignificant  position.  Julius 
Caesar  bestowed  citizenship  on  all  who  practiced  medicine  in 
Rome.  Yet,  in  spite  of  all  that,  physicians  were  not  highly  re- 
garded on  the  whole  during  the  course  of  Roman  history.  High- 
born Romans  left  such  practice  to  the  starving  Greeks,  as  they 
contemptuously  called  them.  A  very  early  decree,  sometimes 
attributed  to  the  almost  mythical  Roman  king  Numa,  recom- 
mends Caesarean  operation.  But  the  Alexandrian  practice  of  dis- 
secting human  bodies  was  abandoned  some  time  after  the  close  of 
the  first  century.  Summarily  speaking,  medical  theory  in  the 
Roman  Empire  lagged  far  behind  medical  organization  and  prac- 
tical measures  for  hospitalization  and  sanitation. 

In  the  last  field  the  Romans  were  supreme.  The  daily  bath  had 
been  an  institution  in  Athens.  And  the  older  Romans,  who  ac- 
cording to  Seneca  bathed  once  a  week  whether  they  needed  it  or 
not,  soon  learned  to  take  up  Greek  fashions.  About  the  baths  we 
shall  speak  in  a  later  section  of  this  chapter.  Suffice  it  now  to  say 
that  fourteen  aqueducts  brought  three  hundred  million  gallons  of 
drinkable  water  into  the  city  every  day.  Both  public  buildings 
and  private  houses  were  adequately  equipped  with  latrines  and 
plumbing  facilities. 

APPLIED  SCIENCE 

The  Romans  made  no  contributions  worth  mentioning  to  the 
science  of  pure  mathematics,  but  they  were  active  in  surveying. 
They  used,  whether  they  invented  it  or  not,  a  crude  surveyor's 
instrument  for  sighting  and  laying  out  farms  and  towns  in  rectan- 
gular lines.  They  employed  an  instrument  singularly  like  the 
taximeter  for  measuring  distances.  A  wheel  of  known  circumfer- 
ence carried  the  machine.  This  wheel  was  hitched  up  by  reducing 
cogs  to  a  bar  at  the  top  of  which  was  a  slotted  disk  containing  a 
number  of  pebbles.  When  the  wheel  which  ran  on  the  ground 
had  covered  the  space  of  a  mile,  one  pebble  dropped  through  an 
aperture  in  the  disk  to  a  receptacle  below.  Distance  was  meas- 


APPLIED  SCIENCE  ^ 

ured  by  counting  the  pebbles  or  by  reference  to  a  dial  on  the  face 
of  the  meter.  The  principle  of  the  pulley  the  Romans  adapted 
to  cranes  used  for  raising  blocks  of  stone  and  worked  by  a 
treadmill. 

Astronomy  was  almost  entirely  neglected  by  the  Romans,  but 
they  did  give  to  the  months  names  which  we  still  use  and  the 
Julian  calendar  paved  the  way  for  the  Gregorian  system.  January 
is  of  course  the  month  of  Janus,  god  of  the  doorway;  February  is 
the  season  of  purification;  March  is  the  month  of  Mars;  April 
"  opens  "  the  spring;  May  is  the  "  older  "  and  June  the  "  younger  " 
month.  July  is  named  for  Julius  Caesar  and  August  for  the  em- 
peror Augustus.  September,  October,  November,  and  December 
are  in  Latin,  respectively,  the  seventh,  eighth,  ninth,  and  tenth 
months.  In  the  earliest  times  the  days  of  the  month  and  year 
were  calculated  by  the  lunar  system.  But  in  the  fourth  century 
B.C.  the  Greek  astronomer  Eudoxus  devised  a  solar  system  adopted 
in  the  third  century  by  the  Egyptians  and  adapted  in  the  first 
century  B.C.  by  Julius  Caesar.  According  to  this  method  the  days 
of  the  year  were  reckoned  at  365.  Every  fourth  year  a  day  was 
thrown  in  before  the  24th  of  February.  This  system  remained  in 
vogue  until  1582,  when  Pope  Gregory  XIII  excised  the  superfluous 
days  which  had  accumulated,  and  is  still  employed  by  the  Greek 
Orthodox  Church.  Parenthetically  we  may  remark  that  lucky 
and  unlucky,  designated  in  popular  use  by  white'  and  black  stone, 
secular  and  religious  days  were  marked  off  on  the  calendar  by 
letters,  and  that  the  number  of  days  devoted  to  games  and  festivals, 
comprising  only  76  in  the  late  Republic,  rose  in  the  fourth  century 
A.D.  to  175  —  a  priceless  boon  to  lazy  schoolboys  and  a  populace 
clamoring  for  games  as  well  as  bread. 

The  first  sundial  was  apparently  introduced  into  Rome  in 
263  B.C.  Sundials,  both  stationary  and  portable  for  the  use  of 
travelers,  were  commonly  employed  during  the  Empire.  Supple- 
menting the  sundial  we  find  the  common  water-glass  ordinarily 
employed  in  Greek  law-courts  to  mark  the  length  of  time  an  ora- 
tor could  speak.  But  other  and  more  elaborate  arrangements 
existed,  though  apparently  they  too  were  of  Greek  origin.  Vitru- 
vius,  a  writer  on  architecture  in  the  time  of  Julius  Caesar,  men- 
tions a  most  ingenious  contrivance  described  by  Ctesibius,  a  clever 


ROMAN  CIVILIZATION 

Alexandrian  barber  of  the  late  second  century.  In  this,  water 
dripped  at  a  fixed  rate  from  a  tank  into  a  reservoir  containing  a 
float  attached  to  a  shaft,  geared  in  turn  to  a  cogwheel.  The  cog- 
wheel worked  a  pointer  which  marked  out  the  hours  on  a  dial 
above  the  reservoir. 

The  most  notable,  if  not  the  most  up-to-date  clock  in  antiquity 
was  that  erected  by  the  Greek  astronomer  Andronicus  Cyrrhestes, 
in  159  B.C.  Its  remains  are  still  a  striking  tourist  attraction  in 
Athens.  This  structure,  commonly  called  The  Tower  of  the 
Winds,  is  an  octagonal  affair  exhibiting  on  its  outer  surface  eight 
figures  which  represent  the  various  winds.  Lines  engraved  below 
the  figures  served  to  section  off  the  shadows  thrown  on  or  near 
them  by  styles  fixed  above.  Originally  a  triton  surmounted  the 
whole.  The  pointer  which  he  held  indicated  the  figure  of  the 
wind  then  blowing.  Inside  was  an  elaborate  water-clock  for  use 
on  cloudy  days.  Similar  structures  were  no  doubt  to  be  found  in 
many  Roman  towns,  but  it  should  be  noted  that  here  as  elsewhere 
the  Romans  were  dependent  on  the  Greeks. 

Augustus  directed  his  chief  engineer,  Marcus  Vipsanius 
Agrippa,  to  make  a  complete  survey  of  the  Empire.  The  resulting 
map,  which  was  completed  toward  the  close  of  the  first  century 
B.C.,  was  displayed  in  Rome  in  a  building  specially  made  for  the 
purpose.  Other  maps  or  road-directions  were  engraved  on  mile- 
stones and  bowls,  and  route-books  with  names  of  towns  and  the 
distances  between  them  were  devised  for  the  convenience  of  tour- 
ists, especially  in  the  Christian  era  for  those  making  pilgrimages 
to  Jerusalem.  But  it  remained  for  the  Greek  writer  Ptolemy,  who 
worked  in  the  employ  of  Roman  officials,  to  present  the  world 
with  the  first  really  scientific  geography. 

LAW  AND  GOVERNMENT 

Before  the  primitive  Italian  community  could  become  the  em- 
pire universal,  the  local  law  of  Rome  had  to  grow,  with  many 
changes,  into  a  group  of  statutes  having  validity  everywhere;  the 
early  democracy  had  to  develop  into  a  universal  monarchy.  Ro- 
man Law  was  finally  codified  in  the  years  527-565  A.D.  during  the 
reign  of  the  Eastern  emperor  Justinian,  and  at  his  direction.  This 


LAW  AND  GOVERNMENT  ^ 

code  it  was  which,  elaborately  annotated  and  often  somewhat 
freely  adapted  by  learned  lawyers,  continued  throughout  the 
Middle  Ages  to  be  reverenced  as  nothing  less  than  Natural  Law; 
it  was  this  code  which  won  adoption  in  Italy  and  Scotland  and 
Germany,  where  Roman  Law  remained  in  force  until  displaced 
in  the  XlXth  century  by  a  more  truly  national  jurisprudence. 
We  may  pause  now  briefly  to  inquire  how  the  early  Roman  civil 
code  became  the  code  universal. 

In  Roman  practice  every  lawsuit  consisted  of  two  parts: 
the  first  in  which  a  superior  judge  defined  the  point  at  issue;  the 
second  in  which  a  lower  judge  or  judges  rendered  decision  on  the 
issue  already  defined.  Two  conflicting  tendencies  were  early  ob- 
servable in  the  interpretation  of  points  at  issue.  The  older  priestly 
group  stood  fast  on  a  dry  and  legalistic  adherence  to  the  letter  of 
rulings  precisely  defined.  The  second  group,  exemplified  by  the 
praetor's  courts,  allowed  for  slips  and  stumbles  in  the  definition 
and  trial  of  a  case  and  stood  by  the  spirit  of  the  law  rather  than 
its  ritualistic  letter.  Out  of  these  two  rival  tendencies  grew  "  civil 
law  "  in  the  older  and  narrower  sense  of  a  rigid  code  applicable 
only  to  Roman  citizens  and  "  civil  law  "  in  the  larger  sense,  which, 
colored  by  "  natural  law,"  the  decisions  of  the  praetors,  and  the 
writings  and  responses  of  the  great  jurists  became  "  universal 
law." 

From  the  year  242  B.C.  there  had  existed  at  Rome  two  types  of 
praetors,  or  trial  magistrates;  the  one  concerned  himself  with 
cases  involving  citizens,  the  other  busied  himself  with  suits 
involving  foreigners.  Each  praetor  was  entitled  at  the  beginning 
of  his  year  of  office  to  lay  down  by  means  of  an  edict  the  policy 
which  generally  speaking  he  meant  to  pursue.  Out  of  the  prae- 
tor's edicts,  and  the  formulae  which  he  evolved  in  rendering  deci- 
sion on  various  points  at  issue  came  a  rather  elastic  code  suitable  not 
only  for  citizens,  but  for  foreigners  as  well  Two  other  forces,  one 
of  which  we  have  mentioned  already,  contributed  to  the  growth 
of  universal  or  international  law.  The  prudentes,  who  correspond 
fairly  closely  to  a  group  of  lawyers  if  not  to  a  formally  recognized 
legal  profession,  were  often  called  upon  by  judges  of  all  sorts  to 
give  advice  in  the  definition  of  disputed  points.  The  "  responses  " 
of  the  frudentes  had  well-nigh  the  validity  of  our  own  Supreme 


ROMAN  CIVILIZATION 

Court  decisions.  Under  the  Empire  the  ruler,  at  least  in  the  later 
period,  himself  appointed  pmdentes  who  helped  him  in  drafting 
his  "  rescripts,"  or  answers  to  legal  questions  which  as  supreme 
praetor,  judge,  and  lawyer  he  had  a  right  to  make.  Finally, 
Roman  Law  may  fairly  be  said  to  have  become  universal  when  in 
212  A.D.  the  emperor  Caracalla  by  his  Constitutio  Antonina  be- 
stowed Roman  citizenship  on  all  free-born  members  of  communi- 
ties throughout  the  Empire  and  thus  extended  the  code  to  almost 
every  inhabitant  of  the  ancient  world. 

ROMAN  BUREAUCRACY 

If  we  look  at  the  purely  political  side  of  Roman  history  from 
Augustus  to  the  abdication  of  Diocletian,  from  31  B.C.  to  305  A.D., 
we  shall  observe  a  general  tendency  to  abrogate  the  ancient  law- 
making  power  of  the  Roman  people  as  vested  in  their  magistrates; 
we  shall  note  a  gradual  wiping  out  of  the  old  distinctions  between 
senators  and  knights,  citizens  and  freedmen;  and,  finally,  we 
shall  mark  a  tendency  to  substitute  for  the  early  republican  form 
of  government,  where  the  people  themselves  gave  power  of  ad- 
ministration to  their  own  magistrates,  a  gigantic  system  of  bureau- 
cracy in  which  the  emperor's  own  financial  agents  and  secretaries 
largely  take  over  the  work  formerly  assigned  to  the  Senate  and 
the  citizen  populace. 

Augustus,  to  be  sure,  was  most  politic  in  his  treatment  of  the 
Senate;  he  hemmed  in  and  hedged  and  covered  his  royal  trail  with 
a  smoke-screen  of  republican  titles.  But  he  was,  nevertheless, 
an  absolute  ruler.  Later  emperors  handled  the  Senate  with  less 
tact.  What  the  high-born  senators  said  when  they  were  forced 
during  the  morning  call  to  kiss  the  toes  of  an  upstart  emperor, 
during  the  day  to  run  for  miles  alongside  his  chariot,  or  during  the 
dinner-hour  to  serve  him  as  waiters  may  better  be  imagined  than 
described  within  the  limitations  of  decent  print.  Even  during  the 
first  century,  foreigners  and  freedrnen  were  creeping  into  the 
Senate.  Under  Diocletian  the  old  order  completely  lost  caste;  it 
was  degraded  to  the  position  of  a  municipal  council  and  its  mem- 
bers were  liable  to  torture  in  trials  for  treason.  Secretaries  of 
Finance  and  Petitions  and  Correspondence,  earning  salaries  of 


DEIFICATION  OF  THE  EMPERORS 

ten  and  fifteen  thousand  dollars  a  year  and  assisted  by  a  vast  corps 
of  slaves  and  freedmen,  now  assumed  under  direction  of  the 
emperor  complete  control  of  provincial  administration  which 
Augustus  had  shared  with  the  Senate. 

Theoretically  the  small  towns  which  made  up  the  urban  popu- 
lation of  the  Empire  remained  self-governing.,  some  of  them  under 
treaty,  some  of  them  as  free  communities,  for  it  had  never  been  the 
policy  of  Rome  to  interfere  too  much  with  local  customs  or  local 
affairs.  But  the  burden  of  the  taxes  required  to  maintain  so  colos- 
sal a  bureaucracy,  the  expenses  involved  in  sustaining  local  offices 
were  so  great  that  natives  frequently  rebelled,  and  prominent 
townsmen  had  to  be  forced  to  hold  the  position  of  magistrate. 
Concomitantly  the  system  of  absentee  landlordship  worked  an 
ever  greater  hardship  on  the  agricultural  populace  and  the  old 
free  farmer,  who  enjoyed  certain  special  privileges  under  the 
earlier  regime,  sank  to  a  state  little  better  than  that  of  a  serf.  Inci- 
dentally, the  upsurgence  of  an  oppressed  rural  population  seems 
to  have  been  one  of  the  causes  contributing  to  the  gradual  decline 
of  the  Western  Empire. 

DEIFICATION  OF  THE  EMPERORS 

But  there  is  another  side  to  the  history  of  the  later  Empire  than 
the  purely  political  one:  the  emergence  of  the  religious  element  in 
government  and  concurrently  the  growth  in  power  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  which  had  such  far-reaching  results  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
Universal  monarchy,  even  the  earliest  growth  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire, was  in  large  measure  made  possible  by  the  concomitant  de- 
velopment of  monotheism.  In  the  person  of  Augustus,  though  he 
discreetly  claimed  to  be  only  the  first  citizen  of  the  State,  mon- 
archy was  realized  and  the  Church  became  one  with  the  State. 
As  we  have  already  said,  Augustus  was  worshiped  as  a  god  in 
various  localities  during  his  lifetime.  He  was  hailed  as  "the 
savior  of  the  'world,"  the  deity  whose  accession  brought  "  good 
news  "  to  the  whole  universe.  And  the  Greek  word  translated 
"  good  news,"  we  may  add,  is  the  same  which  in  the  King  James 
version  of  the  New  Testament  is  rendered  "  gospel." 

Succeeding  emperors  were  frankly  deified  at  Rome  during  their 


ROMAN  CIVILIZATION 

lifetime,  though  they  were  thought  of  rather  as  men  who  became 
gods  than  gods  who  took  the  form  of  men  on  earth.  So  marked 
is  this  tendency  in  the  later  period  that  even  the  chickens  of  the 
imperial  court  are  called  "  sacred."  About  the  middle  of  the  third 
century,  the  emperor  Aurelian  proclaimed  himself  the  earthly 
representation  and  actual  emanation  of  the  oriental  "  sun  god  " 
whose  worship,  closely  allied  to  that  of  Mithra,  he  made  the  offi- 
cial cult  of  the  Empire. 

The  growing  tendency  to  make  religion  the  chief  element  in 
the  Church-State  combination  was  helped  along  when  Constan- 
tine  adopted  Christianity  as  the  State  cult  (313  A.D.).  The  power 
of  the  Church  now  became  stronger  and  stronger.  In  390  the  em- 
peror Theodosius  I  sent  a  barbarian  army  to  Thessalonica  to  pun- 
ish the  inhabitants  for  a  riot  during  which  an  officer  and  some  sol- 
diers had  been  killed.  Summoning  the  populace  into  the  circus, 
the  barbarians  quickly  put  more  than  seven  thousand  souls  to  the 
sword.  Shortly  afterwards  Theodosius  attempted  to  enter  the 
cathedral  at  Milan,  but  Ambrose,  the  militant  bishop,  barred  his 
way.  Not  until  Theodosius  had  stripped  himself  of  his  imperial 
insignia  and  bowed  himself  to  the  dust,  uttering  at  the  same  time 
a  verse  of  the  Psalms  properly  addressed  to  God  himself  (Psalms 
cxix,  25),  not  until  then  did  Ambrose  allow  the  prostrate  emperor 
to  rise  and  enter  the  cathedral.  Largely  at  the  instigation  of 
Ambrose,  paganism  was  forbidden  in  391  A.D.  and  the  splendid 
Temple  of  Serapis  at  Alexandria  was  destroyed.  Ten  years  be- 
fore that  time  Theodosius  called  a  synod  together  at  Constanti- 
nople which  ended  the  Arian  heresy  and  strengthened  the  power 
of  the  militant  and  now  unified  Church. 

AJiter  the  death  of  Theodosius,  Goths  and  Huns  ravaged  East 
and  West.  The  Vandals  invaded  Spain  and  in  455  sacked  Rome. 
Finally,  in  476,  the  last  Western  Emperor  appeared  on  the  scene 
in  the  person  of  Augustulus.  The  earthly  empire  of  old  Rome 
perhaps  fell,  but  the  Church  did  not.  For  many  years  the  two 
powers  recognized  in  the  ancient  world  were  the  pope  in  the  West 
and  the  emperor  in  the  East,  where  the  political  sovereign  was  still 
head  of  the  Church.  Not  content  with  religious  power,  the 
Church  invaded  politics.  Carrying  on  in  almost  perfect  detail 
the  bureaucratic  organization  borrowed  in  part  by  Augustus 


ROMANS  AS  ARTISTS  AND  BUILDERS 

from  the  Hellenistic  world  and  perfected  at  long  length  by 
Diocletian,  the  Church  felt  competent  to  dominate  both  spheres. 
And  so,  for  many  years,  she  did.  Pope  Gregory  VII  brought 
Henry  IV  in  penitent's  garb  to  his  knees  in  the  snow-covered 
castle  of  Canossa  more  than  a  thousand  years  after  Paul  the 
Apostle  had  begun  the  planting  of  a  church  unified  without 
reference  to  position  or  caste,  a  church  whose  "  polity  was  from 
heaven."  And  not  until  Philip  IV  of  France  defied  the  bull  of 
Boniface  VIII  which  in  1296  forbade  the  clergy  to  pay  secular 
taxes  without  his  consent,  was  the  authority  of  the  pope  seriously 
challenged. 

THE  ROMANS  AS  ARTISTS  AND  BUILDERS 

For  the  average  Roman,  statues  and  paintings  were  mostly 
things  one  bought  rather  than  created.  Efforts  to  show  that  the 
Romans  had  a  definite  art  of  their  own  have  on  the  whole 
proved  unsuccessful.  Romans  like  Verres,  the  governor  of 
Sicily,  stole  or  bought  at  a  ridiculous  price  the  objects  of  art 
which  they  fancied;  and  some  Roman  emperors  as  well  were  not 
exempt  from  this  charge.  Art  one  must  have  for  the  decoration 
of  home  and  palace  and  public  building,  for  the  glorification  of 
personal  pride  and  the  perpetuation  of  one's  name.  Where  it 
came  from  mattered  little. 

Wealthy  Romans  might  be  able  to  afford  the  originals  of 
Greek  statues  and  paintings,  but  the  majority  had  to  be  contented 
with  copies.  Wretched  little  Cupids  and  Venuses  and  Mercurys 
squinted  down  at  the  visitor  from  every  conceivable  niche  and 
cranny.  The  making  of  these  statues  and  statuettes  became  a 
very  lucrative  and  specialized  business.  Some  workmen  con- 
centrated on  making  heads,  others  did  nothing  but  put  in  eyes, 
still  others  riveted  their  attention  on  torsos.  About  as  much  art 
went  into  the  making  of  the  average  commercial  copy  as  goes 
into  our  window-dummies  or  the  trumpery  Beethovens  and 
Napoleons  which  used  to  glare  with  beetling  brows  from  every 
library  shelf.  A  good  deal  of  the  painting  which  survives  in 
houses  excavated  at  Pompeii  falls  into  the  dining-room  picture 
class.  We  learn  from  it  a  good  deal  about  ancient  mythology 


ROMAN  CIVILIZATION 

and  no  little  about  ancient  private  life,  but  most  of  it  is  late 
Hellenistic  and  rather  contemptible. 

Petty  vanity  had  an  abnormal  growth  during  the  Empire. 
Small  towns  were  choked  with  equestrian  statues  and  portrait 
busts  of  little  seekers  after  immortality.  In  some  cases  the  statues 
of  the  emperors  were  so  bad  that  nothing  had  to  be  changed  save 
the  inscription  when  a  new  ruler  came  to  the  throne.  This  does 
not  of  course  apply  to  the  major  portrait  busts,  which  in  some 
cases  are  very  fine.  Cicero  and  Caesar,  for  instance,  are  known 
to  us  in  very  life.  To  this  realism  the  Roman  habit  of  mak- 
ing wax  death-masks  of  their  ancestors  must  have  contributed 
a  great  deal.  The  custom,  finally,  of  making  a  formal  statue 
of  a  dead  man  in  various  postures  had  much  to  do  with  a 
similar  custom  in  mediaeval  times,  and  tomb  or  sarcophagus 
sculpture  carries  on,  sometimes,  the  finest  traditions  of  ancient 
art. 

The  Roman  triumphal  arch,  of  which  the  best  example  is  that 
of  Titus,  showing  the  spoils  from  Jerusalem  carried  in  procession, 
and  the  triumphal  column,  notably  that  of  Trajan,  have  been 
more  ambitiously  than  successfully  imitated  in  modern  times, 
and  have,  alas,  contributed  much  to  our  "  public  fountain  "  school 
of  sculpture,  as  well  as  to  the  mediaeval  and  modern  habit  of 
loading  church  doors  with  historical  carvings. 

ARCHITECTURE 

The  art  of  building  was  an  entirely  different  matter.  Elaborate 
political  organizations  demand  elaborate  public  buildings;  the 
effective  use  of  land  demands  drainage  and  a  large  city  popula- 
tion, to  be  kept  in  health  and  comfort,  needs  water  mains  and 
baths;  rapid  transportation  and  communication  call  for  bridges 
and  roads.  In  these  fields  the  shrewd,  materialistic,  planning 
Romans  were  unexcelled.  The  columnar  Greek  temple,  which 
represents  Hellenic  architecture  at  its  highest,  was  not  a  unit 
suited  to  indefinite  elaboration  and  expansion.  The  Romans  de- 
vised the  type  of  highly  complex  public  building  still  in  use. 
This  may  best  be  seen  in  the  great  public  baths  or  in  the  imperial 
residences  on  the  Palatine  Hill,  which  were  a  perfect  labyrinth 


THE  ARCH  OF  TRAJAN 


ROMAN  FORUM  AND  SURROUNDING  BUILDINGS 
Modern  painting  showing  the  scene  in  Augustus'  time. 
(facing  page  17S) 


ARCHITECTURE 

of  offices  and  living-  and  dining-quarters,  reached  by  a  maze  of 
corridors. 

One  might  lie  at  ease  in  the  huge  vaulted  halls  of  the  baths  of 
Caracalla  or  Diocletian  and  read  a  book  from  the  adjoining 
libraries,  stroll  into  the  auditorium  and  hear  a  lecture  on  philoso- 
phy, and  perhaps  see  a  play  or  endure  a  poetry-reading,  or  check 
one's  clothes  with  a  final  flourish  at  the  door  and  spend  the  day 
in  a  round  of  hot  and  cold,  vapor  and  plunge  baths,  at  intervals 
buying  food  of  the  hawkers  who  passed  from  room  to  room. 
All  the  pleasure,  in  fact,  of  library,  theater,  art  gallery,  bath,  and 
tavern  could  be  enjoyed  under  one  roof,  so  various  were  the 
resources  of  these  complicated  structures. 

The  arch,  Rome's  great  contribution  to  the  art  of  building, 
has  already  been  mentioned.  Haltingly  employed  by  Egyptians 
and  Assyrians  and  Lydians,  this  form  came  to  the  Romans  per- 
haps through  the  Etruscans,  and  was  by  the  Romans  called  into 
universal  use.  By  it  they  threw  bridges  across  rivers  or  carried 
water-mains  over  valleys.  Through  an  elaboration  of  the  arch 
they  reached  the  architectural  triumph  of  vaulting  and  groined 
vaulting,  a  style  of  construction  in  which  two  barrel  vaults  inter- 
sect at  right  angles,  and  not  least,  the  dome,  a  magnificent  ex- 
ample of  which  still  stands  in  the  Pantheon.  The  Romans  were 
also  familiar  with  the  principle  of  the  interior  and  exterior 
buttress,  later  more  fully  developed  by  Gothic  architecture,  as  a 
means  of  relieving  wall-strain. 

The  origin  of  the  Romanesque  cathedral,  with  its  many  bays 
and  choirs  and  vaults,  has  been  a  question  hotly  disputed.  Some 
discerned  its  genesis  in  the  Roman  bath  or  in  the  Roman  basilica, 
which  affords  the  features  of  central  and  side  aisles,  of  apse 
and  clerestory  lighting  common  to  the  later  Christian  churches. 
Others  have  pointed  out  that  the  subterranean  basilicas  used  by 
the  mystery  cults,  such  as  the  one  near  the  Porta  Maggiore  in 
Rome  which  was  apparently  as  early  as  50  A.D.  the  meeting  place 
of  a  neo-Pythagorean  group  with  Orphic  tendencies,  present  the 
characteristic  elements  of  narthex,  nave,  aisles,  terminal  apse, 
central  seat  for  the  officiating  priest,  and  perhaps  a  font  for  holy 
water. 

However  this  may  be,  the  similarity  between  the  rows  of 

S.T. — 13 


I7g  ROMAN  CIVILIZATION 

many-storied  houses  with  shops  on  the  ground  floor  and  apart- 
ments above  as  seen  in  Pompeii  and  elsewhere,  the  similarity 
between  these  and  our  own  street-fronts  is  evident,  not  to  men- 
tion as  well  the  swaying  wooden  tenement  buildings  in  Rome 
where  the  rent  became  lower,  not  higher,  as  one  ascended  toward 
the  tiles  and  the  insects.  The  atrium  or  hall  with  a  water  tank, 
which  constituted  the  central  feature  of  the  Roman  private  house, 
had  a  most  interesting  development  in  mediaeval  Europe.  In 
such  buildings  as  the  convent  of  the  Vestal  Virgins  below  the 
Palatine  and  permanent  headquarters  of  soldiers  everywhere  it 
was  customary  to  throw  a  group  of  rooms  about  a  central 
quadrangle  or  court.  This  fashion  lead  by  natural  stages  to  the 
cloister  style  of  architecture,  so  commonly  and  often  so  badly 
imitated  on  our  own  college  campuses.  Two  further  modern 
features  were  found  in  the  Roman  house:  glass  windows  and 
hot-air  furnaces. 

CONSTRUCTION  AND  DECORATION 

As  can  be  seen  from  the  foregoing  account  the  Romans  paid 
more  attention  to  construction  than  to  decoration.  Construction 
was  in  the  hands  of  trade-unions  or  guilds,  constituting  a  closed 
corporation  enjoying  subsidy  from  the  State  and  united  in  the 
worship  of  a  single  deity.  Trade  secrets  were  jealously  guarded 
in  the  form  of  symbols  unintelligible  to  outsiders  and  handed 
down  thus  from  generation  to  generation.  Custom  compelled 
these  guilds  to  donate  labor  for  State  projects,  but  private  citizens 
were  obliged  to  pay  through  the  nose  for  organized  construction 
work  on  a  large  scale,  since  the  guilds  practically  controlled 
unskilled  as  well  as  skilled  labor. 

Basic  work  was  done  in  concrete  or  brick  or  squared  stone, 
over  which  oftentimes  a  marble  surface  was  placed.  The  term 
concrete  is  somewhat  misleading.  The  Romans  did  not  use 
actual  concrete,  mixed  outside  the  mold,  except  for  lining  aque- 
ducts and  reservoirs  and  constructing  terraces.  For  domes  and 
vaults  and  wall-work  they  used  layers  of  crushed  stone  and  mortar 
tamped  firmly  into  the  mold,  which  was  composed  usually  of 
timber,  though  sometimes  of  a  preliminary  brick  support  tied 


AQUEDUCTS 

together  with  quick-setting  cement.  Outside  decoration  con- 
sisted largely  of  the  ornamental  facade  with  its  long  lines  of 
columns  and  pilasters  and  arches.  For  columnar  work  the 
Romans  used,  and  sometimes  with  hideous  lack  of  taste,  the  three 
Greek  orders,  Doric,  Ionian,  and  principally  Corinthian. 

AQUEDUCTS 

The  drainage  systems  by  which  the  Romans  reclaimed  marshy 
ground  and  lakes  seem  to  have  been  borrowed  from  the  Etrus- 
cans. But  the  Romans  carried  them  to  a  perfection  not  previ- 
ously known.  The  emperor  Claudius  used  thirty  thousand  men 
and  eleven  years  to  drain  the  Fucine  Lake  by  a  conduit  three 
miles  long,  which  had  to  be  constructed  by  leveling  and  tunnel- 
ing a  mountain.6  In  Augustus'  time  there  was  a  navigable  canal 
draining  the  Pomptine  Marshes  south  of  Rome,  but  gnats  still 
abounded  there,  if  we  may  trust  Horace.7  Indeed,  with  all  their 
attention  to  drainage  and  sanitation,  the  Romans  seem  never  to 
have  realized  the  danger  lurking  in  mosquitoes.  Horace  thinks 
the  use  of  a  mosquito-net  is  worthy  only  of  an  effeminate  Mark 
Antony,  not  of  a  real  Roman.8  While  we  are  on  the  subject  of 
canals,  it  may  be  worth  while  to  remark  that  Nero  planned  to 
cut  through  the  Corinthian  Isthmus,  a  project  finally  carried 
through  by  the  French  in  the  XlXth  century.  At  the  signal 
of  a  trumpet  the  great  artist  and  melodramatist  broke  first  ground 
with  a  mattock  and  hauled  off  a  basketful  of  dirt  on  his  own 
imperial  shoulders.9 

The  carrying  of  water  by  the  fourteen  aqueducts  which  poured 
their  millions  of  gallons  daily  into  Rome  was  effected  sometimes 
by  tunneling  through  mountains,  sometimes  by  throwing  arched 
supports  with  many  intermediate  piers  —  the  Romans  avoided 
the  wide-flung  arch  —  over  a  valley.  Sharp  angles  were  fre- 
quently resorted  to  in  order  to  check  the  flow  of  the  water.  The 
pressure  system  was  used  in  the  city,  where  concrete-lined  reser- 
voirs through  lead  and  terra-cotta  and  wood  pipes  fed  the  faucets 
of  public  buildings  and  private  houses.  During  Nero's  day  a 

*  Suetonius,  Life  of  the  Deified  Claudius,  XX.  8  Epodes,  IX,  16. 

7  Satires,  I,  5,  14.  9  Suetonius,  Uje  of  Nero,  XIX, 


ROMAN  CIVILIZATION 

huge  dam  was  built  for  retaining  water  at  Sublaqueum  (modern 
Subiaco).  The  wall,  which  was  about  fifty-two  feet  thick,  lasted 
nearly  thirteen  hundred  years. 

In  laying  foundations  under  water,  the  Romans  definitely  an- 
ticipated the  modern  methods  of  coffer-dam  partitions,  draining 
by  dredges,  and  lining  the  bottom  of  a  drained  area  with  lime. 
Roman  highways  are  still  a  standing  shame  to  modern  sand  and 
concrete  racketeers.  Nearly  three  thousand  miles  of  good  roads 
radiated  through  the  Empire  in  Augustus'  time  from  the  Golden 
Milestone  in  the  Forum.  Though  usually  not  more  than  ten 
feet  wide,  these  roads  were  built  to  last.  Layers  of  small  stones 
and  concrete  with  octagonal  basalt  paving  blocks  on  top  made 
up  a  roadbed  three  feet  or  more  deep.  The  Appian  Way, 
begun  in  the  fourth  century  B.C.,  is  still  in  use.  Over  these 
highways  galloped  the  imperial  couriers,  making  on  an  average 
fifty  miles  a  day  by  dint  of  changing  horses  at  regular  post- 
stations  maintained  at  government  expense.  Thus  the  long  arm 
of  Rome  could  speedily  reach  robbers  who  lurked  in  wood  and 
cave  to  kidnap  or  murder  travelers,  could  wipe  out  rebellion 
among  the  provinces,  and  support  in  its  steady  routine  the  in- 
creasingly bureaucratic  administration. 

LATIN  LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE 

The  genius  of  the  Latin  tongue  may  best  be  described  in  con- 
nection with  the  literature  written  in  it.  What  concerns  the 
modem  student  more  closely  is  the  survival  and  revival  of  Latin 
as  a  living  mode  of  speech.  When  the  pope  delivers  in  clerical 
Latin  a  speech  heard  over  the  radio  by  the  whole  world,  we  listen 
to  an  unmistakable  proof  that  the  tongue  of  Cicero  is  still  uni- 
versal in  scope,  and  that  so  long  as  the  Catholic  Church  survives 
it  will  doubtless  remain  so.  So  much  is  obvious  to  any  one.  The 
relation,  however,  between  late  or  popular  Latin  and  the  Romance 
languages,  which  in  their  present  form  are  essentially  Latin 
rather  than  pure  native  dialects,  needs  a  little  explanation. 

While  the  Western  Empire  was  still  a  vital  force,  the  provincials 
more  and  more  spoke  Latin.  When  the  Western  Empire  fell  and 
Teutons  or  Tatars  overran  Roman  soil,  the  inhabitants  of  Italy, 


ROMAN  AQUEDUCT  NEAR  NIMES  (ANCIENT  NEMAUSUS), 
SOUTHERN  FRANCE 


RUINS  OF  THE  COLOSSEUM,  THE  ARCH  OF  TITUS  IN  THE  FOREGROUND 
(facing  page  18d) 


LATIN  LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE      & 

Spain,  and  France  retained  not  their  own  native  dialects,  not 
the  dialects  of  their  most  recent  conquerors,  but  the  language  of 
old  Rome  which  in  its  modified  form  Roman  traders  and  soldiers, 
Intermarrying  with  native  women,  had  already  diffused.  This, 
one  must  hasten  to  add,  was  a  good  deal  different  from  the 
formal  language  of  Cicero.  Even  in  the  comedies  of  Plautus, 
two  hundred  years  before  Christ,  we  observe  that  the  tongue 
spoken  by  the  man  in  the  street  differed  widely  in  structure,  even 
in  pronunciation  from  the  meticulous  language  of  the  orator's 
platform.  These  colloquial  tendencies,  visible  thus  far  back,  be- 
came intensified  as  Latin  blended  with  and  triumphed  over  the 
native  dialects. 

Summarily  speaking,  we  may  say  the  classical  vocabulary  was 
changed  in  many  vital  respects,  that  certain  consonants  were  dif- 
ferently pronounced,  while  the  old  distinctions  in  vowel  quanti- 
ties gradually  disappeared,  and  finally  that  verb  structure  became 
analytic  rather  than  synthetic.  Regarding  changes  in  vocabulary, 
the  late  Latin  for  horse  was  caballus,  not  equus,  whence  we  get 
the  French  cheval.  Vulgar  Latin  used  testa  (pot)  rather  than 
caput  to  signify  head;  from  this  comes  the  French  word  tete. 
Changes  in  pronunciation,  also  illustrated  by  the  above  examples, 
may  be  definitely  shown  by  the  following:  The  Latin  word 
flamma  (flame)  becomes  llama  in  Spanish;  in  Italian  ftos 
(flower)  becomes  fior.  The  Latin  word  sic  (thus  or  yes)  yields 
Italian  and  Spanish  si;  while  hoc  (this)  plus  ille  (that)  curiously 
enough  gives  Old  French  oil  and  current  French  out.  Latin 
(ad)  hanc  horam  —  up  to  this  hour  —  becomes  Italian  ancora 
and  French  encore.  Hodie  (today)  added  to  late  Latin  diurnum 
(French  journee)  makes  up  part  of  aujowd'hui  (on  the  day  of 
today) .  As  for  the  analytic  tendency  in  verbs  one  example  will 
suffice.  The  late  Latin  verb  form  scribere  habeo  (I  have  to 
write)  gives  by  contraction  the  Romance  future,  for  example, 
Italian  scrivero  (I  shall  write).  The  process  might  be  indefinitely 
illustrated  by  examples  from  the  French,  Spanish,  and  Italian 
tongues  in  a  variety  of  forms.  The  fact  is  plain:  The  Romance 
languages  are  essentially  late  Latin,  with  some  infusion  from 
learned  Latin,  colored  by  native  characteristics. 


ROMAN  CIVILIZATION 

THE  PERSISTENCE  OF  LATIN 

When  literary  men  outside  England  began  to  write  in  the 
vernacular,  that  is  to  say  modified  vulgar  Latin,  they  addressed 
not  the  uneducated,  but  men  who  might  reasonably  be  expected 
to  know  some  literary  Latin  as  well;  hence  they  frequently  im- 
ported into  their  pages  a  number  of  learned  Latin  words.  In 
England  until  the  Norman  Conquest  Anglo-Saxon,  almost  un- 
touched by  Latin  — though  King  Alfred  translated  Bede's 
Ecclesiastical  History  out  of  the  Roman  tongue  into  the  ver- 
nacular—was the  common  vehicle  of  speech  and  literature.  But 
after  the  conquest  French  and  Latin  words  poured  into  the 
national  treasury. 

All  this  is  quite  aside  from  the  survival  and  revival  of  classical 
Latin  as  a  written,  and  to  a  less  extent,  as  a  spoken  tongue.  A 
long  line  of  churchmen,  Tertullian,  Augustine,  Bede,  Abelard, 
Erasmus  produced  fairly  correct  and  even  immaculately  Cicero- 
nian Latin.  As  late  as  the  end  of  the  XVIIth  century  it  was 
felt  that  no  scientific  work  had  a  chance  of  survival  unless  it  was 
couched  in  the  Roman  tongue.  Bacon,  Harvey,  Newton  — all 
published  their  epoch-making  speculations  in  Latin  and  the 
language  of  scholars  is  still,  in  many  countries,  the  dialect  of 
Caesar  and  Augustus  and  Cicero.  Churchmen,  scholars,  men  of 
letters,  scientists  in  every  land  have  all  contributed  to  carry  on 
the  classical  tradition.  It  is  no  matter  for  wonder,  then,  that 
more  than  half  the  common  words  in  everyday  use  in  English 
speech  are  of  Latin  origin,  and  that  in  learned  English  the  per- 
centage is  far  higher,  the  terminology  of  the  sciences  being  almost 
wholly  Greek  and  Latin. 

"There  are  tears,"  said  Virgil,10  "for  human  suffering,  and 
mortal  sorrows  touch  the  heart."  His  epic  phrase  may  fitly  be 
applied  not  only  to  the  Aeneid,  but  also  to  some  of  the  best  of 
other  Latin  poetry  and  prose.  For  one  finds  there,  perhaps,  a 
homelier  thrill,  a  more  genuine  sense  of  standing  on  native 
human  soil  than  one  gleans  in  the  elfin  fields  of  Greek  literature. 
Humanity  is  there,  humanity  joyous,  sorrowful,  not  untouched, 
sometimes,  alas,  spoiled  by  rhetorical  spots  —  humanity  accom- 

10  Aeneid,  I,  462. 


POPULAR  LITERATURE 

panied  by  consummate  urbanity  and  an  abiding  sense  of  the 
majesty  and  dignity  of  mortal  effort  at  its  highest. 

In  prose  Cicero  not  only  formed  the  literary  style  of  Europe, 
but  transmitted  almost  the  whole  cultural  coinage  of  Greece  to 
the  modern  world.  It  is  a  liberal  education  to  read  his  orations 
—  those  eloquent  and  abusive  documents  which  throw  such  bril- 
liant light  into  the  dark  corners  of  the  ancient  living  room  and 
court  of  law;  to  read  his  letters  where  the  actor  and  literary  man 
who  plays  sometimes  not  very  successfully  at  politics  throws  off 
the  black  robe  and  indulges  in  slang,  to  follow  the  course  of 
Greek  philosophy  in  his  Offices  and  Tusculan  Disputations  and 
to  witness  in  formation  there  the  philosophical  vocabulary  of  the 
modern  world,  to  read  all  these  and  close  then  with  his  essays  On 
Friendship  and  On  Old  Age  where,  with  pathetic  conviction  en- 
gendered by  his  political  career,  Cicero  maintains  that  virtue  is 
the  only  true  foundation  of  friendship  and  resigns  himself  to  the 
thought  that  life  like  all  other  things  must  have  a  limit. 

POPULAR  LITERATURE 

The  history  of  Rome  before  and  after  Cicero  was  written  by 
Livy,  Tacitus,  and  Suetonius,  whose  Lives  of  the  Caesars  de- 
lighted Mark  Twain  with  its  malicious  gossip.  Not  one  of  these 
men  is  a  Thucydides,  yet  Livy,  if  occasionally  over-eloquent  and 
patriotic,  may  stand  at  times  a  comparison  with  the  great  Greek. 
We  should  be  sorry  if  Tacitus,  who  professed  to  write  without 
partisan  zeal,  had  lived  up  to  his  claim  in  his  grim  denunciation 
of  contemporary  vices,  just  as  the  modern  world  would  be  poorer 
off  by  many  pretty  legends  had  not  Suetonius  peeped  through 
imperial  keyholes.  Through  the  pages  of  Petronius'  Satyricon  a 
beginning  was  made  with  the  picaresque  novel,  the  story  of  the 
typical  vagabond,  and  no  one  who  has  followed  this  author 
through  the  lowest  inns  and  taverns  can  ever  forget  his  ex- 
perience. In  Petronius'  Trimalchio,  we  observe  the  newly  rich 
who  makes  his  millions  on  a  limited  educational  outlay.  From 
Petronius  one  may  turn  to  another  and  later  novelist,  the  African 
Apuleius,  magician  and  rhetorician,  charlatan  and  yet  sincere 
Platonist.  In  his  story  The  Golden  Ass  one  encounters  an  odd 


lg4  ROMAN  CIVILIZATION 

assortment  of  hostlers,  witches  who  cut  men's  throats,  mill-slaves 
blinded  by  the  fumes  of  the  flour,  begging  priests,  robbers  hiding 
in  caves,  and,  most  fantastic  of  all,  a  hero  who,  all  for  love,  turns 
into  a  donkey  and  after  countless  sufferings  is  restored  to  human 
form.  Yet  turn  but  a  few  pages  of  Apuleius  and  you  pass  from 
this  earthly  rogue's  gallery  to  the  celestial  portraits  of  Cupid  and 
Psyche. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  praise  in  detail  the  multiform  art  of 
Virgil,  whether  exhibited  in  his  Aeneid  or  in  that  exquisitely 
beautiful  pastoral,  that  passionate  plea  for  a  return  to  the  soil, 
the  Georgics.  We  may  only  stop  further  in  passing  to  single  out 
the  names  of  Catullus,  Horace,  Ovid,  and  Juvenal.  Catullus 
brought  into  European  literature  for  the  first  time,  perhaps,  the 
utter  despair  of  a  man  sincerely  in  love  with  a  worthless  woman. 
The  experience  broke  his  heart  and  doubtless  hastened  his  death, 
but,  having  before  us  the  lines  which  his  suffering  for  Lesbia 
produced,  we  can  almost  say  we  are  glad  he  suffered.  Horace's 
Odes  have  been  throughout  the  history  of  education  the  urbane 
gentleman's  guide  to  the  pleasant,  if  not  the  high  life.  His  epistle 
On  the  Art  of  Poetry  gave  to  literary  criticism  a  wealth  of  familiar 
terminology  and  provided  a  major  impetus  for  French  neo- 
Classicism.  Ovid's  charm  as  a  story-teller  captivated  the  Middle 
Ages  and  has  largely  shaped  the  modern  conception  of  classical 
mythology.  In  a  pleasant,  sometimes  almost  a  flip  and  popular 
manner,  he  discourses  in  the  Art  of  Love,  enlarges  on  his  own 
amorous  affairs,  expatiates  on  early  Roman  religion,  and  retells 
the  stories  of  the  Greek  gods.  Though  his  position  as  unofficial 
poetic  chaplain  to  the  faster  set  in  Rome  cost  him  ten  years  of 
exile  in  the  barbarous  Black  Sea  country,  Ovid  has  not  for  that 
reason  been  ostracized  from  polite  literary  society. 

SATIRE 

In  oratory,  history,  and  philosophy,  in  the  epic  and  lyric  the 
Romans  acknowledged  the  Greeks  as  their  masters,  but  satire 
they  claimed  as  a  form  all  their  own.  And  Juvenal  in  the 
second  century  A.I>.,  whether  the  Romans  earlier  invented  the 
prose-verse  type  of  satire  or  not,  certainly  made  of  satiric  preach- 


SATIRE  !g5 

ing  in  hexameter  verse  a  fine  and  caustic  art.  With  an  indigna- 
tion which  sometimes  serves  as  a  pretext  for  dragging  in  details 
unsavory  to  moral  nostrils,  Juvenal  describes  and  excoriates  the 
vices  of  contemporary  Rome.  The  times,  if  one  listens  to  Juvenal, 
are  completely  put  of  joint.  Rome  is  so  noisy  and  dangerous  that 
it  is  no  longer  fit  to  live  in.  Rumbling  carts,  cattle  bawling  and 
drovers  cursing  outside  the  window,  the  constant  threat  of  fire 
make  night  hideous  for  the  poor  man,  tossing  on  his  ragged 
couch  in  a  vermin-infested  tenement  house.  If  you  can  get 
through  the  traffic  alive  during  the  daytime  you  are  likely  to 
have  your  teeth  knocked  out  by  some  gangster  at  night.  The 
only  safety  lies  in  an  unscrupulous  conscience  and  a  full  purse. 

For  Rome  now  worships  the  unofficial  deities  Wealth  and 
Vice.  Men  no  longer  ask  what  you  are,  but  how  much  you  have. 
Poor  poets  and  scholars  are  glad  to  get  the  sportula,  or  "  morning 
hand-out,"  from  a  newly  rich  freedrnan  who  gambles  and  gorges 
all  night  and  sleeps  all  day.  There  are  few  virtuous  philosophers 
and  almost  no  decent  women  in  Rome.  Riches,  drunkenness, 
foreign  ways,  and  foreign  vices  have  ruined  the  morals  of  the 
Roman  people.  All  things  now  are  a  vanity  and  a  vexation  of 
spirit. 

The  morals  of  the  upper  classes  may,  as  Juvenal  says,  have 
decayed.  Certainly  the  Western  Empire  crumbled  and  made  way 
for  the  Church.  Physical  Rome  was  sacked  by  barbarians,  but 
the  literature  of  Latin  poetry  came  again  and  again  to  fresh 
bloom,  in  Ausonius  and  Claudian,  in  the  sensuous  mysticism  of 
Bernard  of  Clairvaux  and  the  rollicking  student  songs  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Juvenal  was,  in  fact,  hardly  dead  and  burned  to 
ashes  when  Florus,  the  historian  and  poet  of  Hadrian's  reign, 
enshrined  the  court  of  Venus  in  the  Pervigiliurn  Veneris,  St. 
Venus'  Eve,  the  most  delicate  expression  of  gracious  melancholy 
in  the  whole  imperious  language  of  Rome. 

This  symphony  in  miniature  opens  with  the  festal  line,  "  To- 
morrow let  him  love  who  never  has  loved  before,  and  he  who 
has  loved  let  him  love  tomorrow  "  — 

Cras  amet  qui  numquam  amavit,  quique  amavit  eras  amet. 
To  this  insistent  refrain  the  court  of  Venus  is  marshaled  in 
that  trochaic  meter  which  Tennyson  was  to  use  in  his  ail-too- 


l86  ROMAN  CIVILIZATION 

well-known  verse  "In  the  spring  a  young  man's  fancy/'  etc. 
"  Tomorrow  is  Venus'  festival.  Tomorrow  the  goddess  herself 
holds  court  with  the  Nymphs  and  golden  Cupid.  Tomorrow  the 
roses  born  of  Love's  blood  and  the  kiss  of  Venus  will  be  joined 
in  marriage.  For  this  bridal,  Heaven  and  Earth  and  the  flocks 
upon  it,  for  this  bridal  Heaven  and  Earth  and  Sea  prepare.  The 
nightingale  sings  of  love.  .  .  .  She  sings,  but  I,  the  poet,  am  mute. 
When  shall  I  my  long  silence  break?  " 

Hearing  this  brief  break  in  fancy's  silence,  looking  back  over 
the  road  of  classic  culture  we  have  traveled  far  too  swiftly,  bear- 
ing in  mind  the  achievements  of  these  men  of  elder  days  and  the 
languages  in  which  they  embodied  them,  one  may  reassure  the 
poet  whose  muse  drooped  wearily  after  so  short  a  poem  that  his 
past  is  not  dead.  Those  who  through  long  study  or  sudden  dis- 
covery have  come  to  admire  the  men  of  classical  antiquity  for 
their  greatness  and  for  their  weakness  may  with  real  conviction 
repeat  St.  Venus'  festal  line  — 

Cms  amet  qul  numquam  amavit,  quique  amavit  eras  amet. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
CHRISTIANITY 


"  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE  " 

CHRISTIANITY  IS  THE  SECOND,  OR  OTHER,  OF  THE  TWO  CULTURE- 
civilizations  of  the  western  world.  In  contrasting  the 
Occident  with  the  Orient,  it  appears  that  the  World  Spirit 
or  Reason,  God  or  man,  has  made  two  distinct  attempts  to 
civilize  the  man  of  the  West,  the  European.  In  the  eastern  world 
there  is  no  parallel  to  this,  for  in  Asia  we  find  no  one  social  order 
undergoing  first  one,  then  another  form  of  civilization,  but  a 
number  of  independent  cultures,  Hindu  and  Persian,  Chinese 
and  Japanese,  proceeding  immemorially  along  organic  lines  of 
development.  Hence  we  must  expect  to  find  a  radical  contrast 
between  the  histories  of  Europe  and  Asia.  The  peculiarity  of 
the  situation  in  the  West,  where  civilization  has  been  twofold, 
appears  in  various  forms  and  provokes  as  many  contrasts. 
Viewed  broadly,  the  dualism  of  European  civilization  is  that  of 
ancient  and  modern.  Considered  from  the  standpoint  of  religion, 
it  suggests  the  difference  between  paganism  and  Christianity. 
From  the  cultural  point  of  view,  it  is  the  difference  between 
Classicism  and  Romanticism.  Now  the  peculiarity  of  Christi- 
anity is  discovered  in  the  way  it  fused  its  Hebrew  content  of 
religion  with  Greek  philosophy  and  Roman  politics.  Often  it 
seems  strange  to  us  that  St.  Augustine  should  refer  to  Plato  and 
Thomas  Aquinas  to  Aristotle,  but  it  is  just  as  strange  that  they 
should  refer  to  Moses. 

There  have  been  two  empires,  as  Ibsen  expressed  it  in  Emperor 
and  Galilean  (1873)  :  the  empire  of  the  flesh  and  the  empire  of 
the  spirit.  Now,  as  it  seemed  to  Ibsen,  "  The  old  (classic)  beauty 
is  no  longer  beautiful  and  the  new  (Christian)  truth  no  longer 
true."  And  as  the  empire  of  the  flesh  was  swallowed  up  in  the 
empire  of  the  spirit,  so  the  second  shall  succumb  to  the  "  Third 
Empire."  x  Ibsen  does  not  tell  us  definitely  what  the  Third  (or 

1  Emperor  and  Galilean,  Act  III. 
z87 


Z88  CHRISTIANITY 

post-Christian)  Empire  is  to  be  or  when  it  will  be  founded.  He 
refers  to  it  generally  as  a  new  religious  order  which  will  come 
into  being  when  "  the  right  man,"  or  superman,  appears.  The 
hero  of  the  world-drama  seems  to  conclude  that  the  Third  Em- 
pire is  impossible  and  thus  falls  back  upon  Christianity.  The 
Third  Empire  may  be  thought  to  be  appearing  in  Socialism,  but 
the  prospect  is  neither  inviting  nor  plausible.  Hence,  it  is  suf- 
ficient for  us  in  referring  to  Ibsen  to  make  use  of  no  more  than 
the  historical  distinction  between  the  First  and  Second  Empires 
which  he  makes  so  dramatically.  Then  we  can  realize  in  a  new 
way  that  we  have  before  us  a  thousand  years  of  paganism  and 
nearly  twice  as  long  a  period  of  Christianity. 

The  "  Second  Empire,"  as  we  may  call  it  here,  was  not  ushered 
in  as  a  great  religious  movement  comparable  to  that  inaugurated 
by  Moses  or  that  even  of  Mahomet.  "  The  Kingdom  of  God 
came,"  as  it  was  said,  "  not  with  observation."  Still  less  was 
Christianity  the  establishment  of  a  formal  philosophical  school 
like  the  Academy  of  Plato  and  least  of  all  was  it  an  organization 
in  any  wise  resembling  the  Caesarean  Empire.  Christianity  was 
largely  a  new  spirit  accompanied  by  a  novel  point  of  view,  in 
which  sense  it  is  best  compared,  if  comparisons  be  demanded, 
with  Buddhism.  Christianity,  however,  showed  more  enterprise 
and  less  of  the  purely  contemplative;  in  time,  when  the  Apostle 
Paul  set  forth  into  Europe,  it  became  propaganda  and  then  crys- 
tallized into  an  ecclesiastical  organization.  Now,  because  of  its 
original  serenity  and  mystical  character,  it  is  difficult  to  identify 
the  Christian  religion  with  any  special  form  of  western  civiliza- 
tion and  culture.  Of  the  two,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  "  Christian 
Culture  "  seems  a  more  likely  idea  than  "  Christian  Civilization." 
We  can  think  of  Christian  ideals  more  easily  than  we  can  dis- 
course upon  Christian  institutions.  Suppose  we  consider  Chris- 
tianity first  as  a  form  of  culture. 

CHRISTIAN  CULTURE 

In  the  case  of  Christianity,  both  civilization  and  culture  are 
masked  by  religion,  a  religion  which  did  not  assume  the  usual 
form  of  a  national  faith,  but,  like  Buddhism,  aspired  to  become 


CHRISTIAN  CULTURE  ^9 

a  world-religion.  But,  since  Christianity  has  been  reduced  to 
theological  and  ecclesiastical  forms,  it  is  difficult  for  us  to  identify 
its  essence  and  appreciate  its  value.  Its  exponents  are  so  profes- 
sional and  have  treated  the  Good  News  in  such  a  professional 
way  that  we  cannot  easily  tell  what  Christianity  really  is.  It  has 
the  appearance  of  a  small  park  in  a  large  city;  a  bit  of  nature 
encompassed  by  artificial  civilization.  However,  we  do  find 
certain  nai've  interpreters  of  Christianity  in  both  the  mediaeval 
and  the  modern  period.  We  have  St.  Francis  d'Assisi  and  to  some 
extent  Dante.  Among  modern  philosophers,  we  find  "  apostles  " 
of  Christianity  in  Kant  and  Hegel,  as  also  in  Pascal  and  Chateau- 
briand. In  our  age,  poetic  minds  have  adopted  widely  divergent 
views  of  Christianity's  value,  hence  we  find  the  pathetic  affirma- 
tions of  Tennyson  and  the  crude  denials  of  Thomas  Hardy,  the 
hectic  approval  of  Tolstoi  and  the  equally  maniacal  disapproval 
of  Nietzsche.  The  men  of  genius  who  have  treated  the  subject 
of  Christianity  simply  and  sincerely  are  few  in  number,  and  who 
indeed  are  they? 

When,  as  is  here  the  case,  we  strive  to  consider  Christianity  as 
a  form  of  culture,  we  encounter  more  than  one  difficulty.  First, 
Christianity  has  not  assumed  the  intellectual  and  aesthetical  to 
be  expected  in  a  culture,  although  it  has  suggested  philosophical 
ideas  and  artistic  motives.  Then,  the  course  of  Christianity 
through  history  has  not  resulted  in  the  identification  of  it  with 
any  specific  period  of  culture;  certainly  not  with  Scholasticism, 
and  still  less  with  the  Renaissance.  The  Rationalism  of  early 
modern  thought  was  in  definite  opposition  to  traditional  Chris- 
tianity, so  that  there  is  practically  nothing  left  by  way  of  a  par- 
allel except  Romanticism.  But  here,  again,  one  hesitates  to  attrib- 
ute any  real  affinity  'between  ancient  Galilean  mysticism  and 
early  XlXth-century  emotionalism.  There  is  a  possible  affiliation 
in  the  case  of  Chateaubriand  and  a  more  theoretical  relationship 
with  Schleiermacher,  yet  neither  of  these  romantic  minds  was  in 
a  mood  to  express  the  inward  meaning  of  the  Christian  religion. 

What  is  distinctive  of  the  Christian  spirit  of  culture,  and  how 
does  it  differ  from  that  of  Classicism?  We  recognize  at  once  the 
difference  of  motif  when  we  contrast  Doric  architecture  with  the 
Gothic,  the  low  and  mundane  with  the  lofty  and  well-balanced; 


I90  CHRISTIANITY 

not  so  easily  do  we  distinguish  between  the  inward  spirit  of  the 
"  First  Empire  "  and  the  "  Second  Empire."  In  like  manner,  art 
reveals  the  contrast  between  the  graceful  form  of  Apollo  and  the 
pathetic  figure  of  Christ;  the  beauty  of  art  cannot  obscure  the 
difference  between  the  mobile,  tranquil  forms  that  Pheidias 
placed  upon  the  frieze  of  the  Parthenon  and  the  straining,  striv- 
ing shapes  that  Michelangelo  fixed  in  fresco  upon  the  ceiling  of 
the  Sistine  Chapel  in  the  Vatican.  But  these  objective  and  artis- 
tic differences  are  more  inspiring  than  illuminating;  they  give 
us  contrasted  feelings  but  do  not  accompany  them  with  compara- 
tive ideas.  What,  then,  is  the  difference  between  Classicism  and 
Christianity,  between  the  ancient  and  the  modern? 

CHRISTIANITY  AND  CLASSICISM 

At  the  outset,  when  we  consider  the  distinction  between  the 
Gospels  of  Christ  and  the  Dialogues  of  Plato,  we  feel  that  there 
is  all  the  difference  in  the  world.  In  Greek  thought  we  come 
upon  something  formal,  static,  and  without  due  presentiment  of 
an  enormous  future.  Classicism  was  a  closed  system,  Christi- 
anity an  open  one.  In  Christianity,  we  find  what  is  dynamic, 
vital,  and  progressive  in  the  form  of  a  coming  Kingdom.  Remote 
in  its  origin,  Christianity  is  just  as  far-flung  in  its  future.  Thus 
it  is  both  aboriginal  and  apocalyptical  and  its  Founder  is  the 
Alpha  and  Omega  of  all  things.  Aristotle  seems  to  have  been 
under  the  impression  that  classic  culture,  if  not  all  culture,  was 
complete  and  needed  only  to  be  analyzed  and  summed  up,  while 
Christ  was  apparently  dominated  by  the  idea  that  culture  in  the 
form  of  the  growing  soul  had  just  begun.  Perhaps  we  may  be 
allowed  to  state  this  in  the  form  of  an  analogy  according  to 
which  Classicism  was  like  a  large  but  closed  circle,  while  Chris- 
tianity resembled  a  narrow  tube  open  at  both  ends. 

When  we  reduce  this  difference  in  historical  conception  to 
psychological  terms  we  find  that  Classicism  consisted  in  the  pos- 
session, Christianity  in  the  pursuit  of  the  desired  object  —  hap- 
piness, goodness,  beauty,  truth.  The  Greek  ideal  was  that  of 
permanent  possession  —  \tema  es  aei;  the  Galilean  aspiration  that 
of  the  perpetual  quest  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Yet  the  pagan 


CHRISTIANITY  A  "CULTURE  CONQUEST"     I9I 

possession  of  the  desired  object  did  not  mean  a  mere  resting  in 
this,  except  perhaps  in  the  case  of  the  Garden  of  Epicurus;  it 
meant  the  ceaseless  but  tranquil  view  and  review  of  this  in  ac- 
cordance with  what  Aristotle  called  "  the  energy  of  contempla- 
tion." In  like  manner,  the  Christian  conception  of  ceaseless  quest 
was  not  meant  to  be  taken  romantically  as  so  much  restless,  re- 
suldess  pursuit.  The  search  was  something  to  be  rewarded; 
hence,  the  saying,  "  Seek  and  ye  shall  find."  This  motif  gave 
Christianity  its  futuristic  turn,  colored  as  this  was  by  the  fondly 
tormenting  idea  of  the  second  coming  of  the  Lord.  These  con- 
trasted moods  of  paganism  and  Christianity  were  reflected  in 
their  respective  systems  of  morals. 

The  moral  ideal  of  life  according  to  the  Greeks  was  based 
upon  the  general  conception  o£  the  Good  and  expanded  into 
the  forms  of  the  cardinal  virtues  —  temperance  and  courage, 
wisdom  and  justice.  In  a  general  but  none  too  vigorous  manner, 
a  Greek  like  Plato  tended  to  identify  the  Good  with  God,  but 
there  was  in  all  this  the  idea  that  the  Good  is  self-sufficient  and 
needs  not  the  will  of  God  to  render  it  effective.  The  Christian 
conception  of  life  was  quite  at  variance  with  this.  There  is  none 
good  save  God.  How  could  there  be  a  dallying  virtue  like  tem- 
perance with  its  moderations  when  one  had  given  up  completely 
his  life  in  the  world  ?  Or  what  use  was  there  for  such  a  virtue  as 
courage  when  the  believer  had  resolved  upon  a  course  of  non- 
resistance  and  love  of  enemies  ?  Wisdom  was  condemned  by  the 
Apostle  Paul  on  the  ground  that  it  had  failed  to  yield  knowledge 
of  God,  while  justice  was  something  that  belonged  to  God,  not 
man.  The  Christian  could  not  fail  to  admire  the  virtues  of  the 
ancients,  but  he  thought  it  in  vain  to  pursue  them;  or,  as  St. 
Augustine  expressed  the  matter,  "  the  virtues  of  the  ancients  were 
vices,  but  such  splendid  vices  —  virtutes  veterum  viticc  splendida"  2 


CHRISTIANITY  A  "  CULTURE  CONQUEST  " 

It  would  be  without  meaning  to  style  Christianity  itself  a  form 
of  culture  in  the  strict  sense  of  that  term;  it  were  the  greater  folly 
to  compare  its  cultural  values  with  those  of  the  Greeks.  In  the 

2  DC  Civitate  Dei,  XIX,  25. 


I92  CHRISTIANITY 

actual  culture  that  was  to  follow,  as  in  Gothic  architecture,  the 
early  Renaissance,  and  Victorian  literature,  there  was  something 
that  might  possibly  be  placed  side  by  side  with  the  arts  of  Greece, 
but  for  the  most  part  Christianity  was  a  religious  movement  in 
which  the  aesthetic  perfection  of  life  was  ever  bound  to  be  second- 
ary. Culture,  however,  is  more  than  the  creation  of  arts  and 
sciences.  It  is,  as  we  know,  the  separation  of  man  from  nature 
and  the  distinction  between  the  animality  and  the  humanity  of 
man.  Just  as  much  is  culture  the  pursuit  of  remote  interests  in 
preference  to  such  immediate  ones  as  are  absorbed  by  the  ques- 
tions "What  shall  we  eat  and  drink;  wherewithal  shall  we  be 
housed  and  clothed?  "  Likewise  is  it  the  elaboration  of  an  inner 
life  instead  of  the  mere  building  up  of  outer  existence.  These 
tendencies  peculiar  to  culture  are  more  Christian  than  classic 
and,  although  the  name  of  Christ  may  not  evoke  the  same  aes- 
thetic feelings  associable  with  Apollo,  the  inward  spirit  of  Christ, 
"  sweet  reasonableness "  as  Matthew  Arnold  styled  it,  is  the 
animating  source  of  culture  in  the  western  world. 

Christ  did  not  dwell  upon  the  idea  of  Truth  or  Beauty;  his 
interest  was  in  Faith  and  Love.  But  he  placed  the  mind  of  a 
man  in  a  position  where,  in  detachment  from  the  things  of  this 
world  and  the  cares  of  this  life,  it  might  itself  pursue  the  true  and 
beautiful.  This  does  not  mean  that  Christ's  Hebraizing  type 
of  mind,  all  wrapped  up  in  the  idea  of  righteousness  toward  God, 
extended  Hellenism  or,  still  less,  sought  something  intellectually 
and  artistically  superior  to  the  Greek  ideal.  It  means  only  that 
Christ  achieved  what,  in  another  connection  altogether,  Goethe 
called  a  "  culture-conquest."  This  idea  of  wresting  something 
from  nature,  something  that  apparently  Socrates  and  Sophocles 
each  in  his  respective  field  sought  to  achieve,  Christ  expressed 
broadly  and  solemnly  in  his  great  text:  "  What  shall  it  profit  a 
man  if  he  gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul?  "  It  is 
undeniable  that  this  tremendous  text  descends  upon  the  soul  with 
appalling  weight  and  impresses  and  oppresses  it  with  an  aw- 
ful sense  of  its  divine  vocation.  But  it  is  also  true  that  the  utter- 
ance in  essence  has  its  lighter  vein,  wherein  the  mind  is  shown 
that  it  possesses  an  inner  life  capable  of  more  than  one  form  of 
cultivation. 


CHRISTIANITY  A  'k  CULTURE  CONQUEST"     IO,3 

The  attempt  to  elaborate  the  idea  of  Christian  culture  is  ever 
made  difficult  for  us  by  our  inability  to  detach  the  Christian 
religion  from  the  categorical  considerations  of  morality  and  the 
ecclesiastical  organizations  that  have  taken  charge  of  these.  The 
ideals  of  righteousness  and  Church  are  inimical  to  the  ideals  of 
beauty  and  art.  We  do  tolerate  the  idea  of  Christian  civilization, 
the  fruits  by  which  the  tree  is  known;  not  as  readily  do  we  give 
acceptance  to  the  idea  of  Christian  culture,  the  leaves  on  the  fruit- 
ful tree,  if  one  may  express  it  that  way.  The  immediate  well- 
being  of  mankind  in  law,  practical  progress,  charity,  and  the 
like  —  these  we  accept  as  the  results  of  religion.  Christianity  is 
supposed  to  better  both  the  inner  and  the  outer  man.  But  the 
arts  and  sciences,  which  represent  the  remote  well-being  of  man 
—  these  seem  distinct  from  the  Christian  consciousness,  must  take 
care  of  themselves,  and  should  not  be  allowed  to  compete  with 
righteousness.  Thus  the  whole  field  of  righteousness  is  engrossed 
with  moral  ideals;  aesthetic  ones  are  crowded  out.  When, 
therefore,  one  is  exhorted  to  seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God, 
which  covers  a  wide  spiritual  area,  he  is  expected  to  seek  it 
primarily  and  almost  exclusively  in  connection  with  its 
righteousness. 

There  has  been  a  multitude  of  scholars  who  have  intuited 
Christianity  ethically;  the  merest  few  who  have  seen  anything 
aesthetical  and  intellectual  in  it.  Fra  Angelico,  Botticelli,  Peru- 
gino  were  devout  artists;  Copernicus,  Kepler,  Newton,  religious 
scientists;  but  such  men  were  not  altogether  conscious  of  their 
Christian  culture.  In  our  day,  Ibsen  saw  in  the  great  text  of 
Christianity  something  suggestive  of  individualism,  when  he 
made  Peer  Gynt  say  that  somewhere  he  had  heard  of  a  text  to 
the  effect  that  if  you  gained  the  whole  wide  world  but  lost  your- 
self, the  gain  was  but  a  garland  on  a  cloven  skull.  But  the  intro- 
duction of  this  major  maxim  of  Christianity  was  made  in  such 
a  jocular  spirit  that  it  counts  for  no  more  than  a  suggestion.  In  a 
more  serious  mood,  Wagner  compared  the  tone  world  of  Beet- 
hoven, if  not  of  all  composers,  to  the  realm  of  righteousness 
disclosed  by  Christ,  but  it  was  chiefly  with  the  idea  of  distin- 
guishing his  art  from  the  others  that  he  said,  "  Our  kingdom  is 
not  of  this  world."  But  it  is  fairly  plain  that  both  Ibsen  and 

S.T.— 14 


I94  CHRISTIANITY 

Wagner  felt  and  appreciated  the  uniqueness  and  novelty  of  the 
Christian  culture  to  which  they  contributed. 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

The  essence  of  Christianity,  like  the  spirit  of  modernism,  was 
a  late  discovery.  It  was  made  by  Immanuel  Kant  in  the  year 
1793  in  a  book  entitled  Religion  within  the  Limits  of  Mere 
Reason.  The  tone  of  this  work  was  that  of  the  Schoolmen,  the 
Fathers  of  the  Church,  or  even  of  the  Apostles,  but  the  form  of  it 
was  modern  and  rationalistic.  Kant  proceeded  upon  the  premise 
that  the  Christian  religion  is  based  upon  moral  values  rather  than 
metaphysical  ideas,  and  applied  his  principles  of  ethics  to  a 
historical  religion.  Before  taking  up  the  problem  of  Christianity, 
Kant  had  said,  "  I  had  to  destroy  knowledge  to  make  room  for 
faith."  Then  he  went  to  work.  He  attempted  to  deduce  histori- 
cal facts  from  philosophical  principles,  the  doctrines  of  Christi- 
anity from  his  Categorical  Imperative.  But  in  thus  seeking 
fundamentals,  Kant  had  the  good  fortune  to  identify  Christianity 
with  the  ideals  of  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  This  generated  a  new  type  of  theology,  if  theology  it  can 
be  called;  it  made  possible  the  development  of  critical  literature 
devoted  to  the  important  idea  —  the  "  essence  of  Christianity." 
The  result  is  recognizable  in  the  much  abused  expression  "  the 
fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man." 

In  grasping  the  essentials  of  Christianity,  one  must  use  both 
hands,  so  to  speak.  One  must  lay  hold  of  the  original  Galilean 
program  in  all  its  rustic  sweetness;  he  must  apprehend  the  Gen- 
tile doctrine  in  its  civic  severity.  First  there  was  the  idea  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God  which  was  not  of  this  world,  but  which  none 
the  less  was  comparable  to  all  manner  of  small  and  interesting 
objects  in  the  natural  order  and  the  everyday  life  of  man:  a 
grain  of  mustard  seed,  a  farmer  sowing  seed,  the  leaven  which 
a  woman  took  and  hid  in  three  measures  of  meal,  a  treasure  hid 
in  a  field,  a  pearl  of  great  price,  a  net  let  down  into  the  sea. 
Never  was  reference  made  to  anything  grandiose  and  beyond  the 
reach  of  immediate  experience,  as  the  sea  or  sky,  the  tall  mountain 
or  long  river,  but  always  the  delightfully  commonplace.  The 


THE  GOSPELS  AND  THE  EPISTLES 

hearer  of  the  parable  descriptive  of  the  Kingdom  was  supposed 
to  intuit  the  doctrine  by  penetrating  into  his  habitual  experience, 
which  he  was  supposed  to  raise  to  the  second  power. 

The  setting  of  primitive  Christianity,  with  its  Gospel  of  the 
Kingdom,  was  idyllic,  its  tone  was  naive,  its  symbol  a  child.  The 
natural  mysticism  of  Christ  made  strict  organization  impossible. 
The  disciples  assembled  in  a  house  or  boat;  the  multitudes 
gathered  on  a  hillside  or  the  lake  shore.  When  there  arose  the 
question  of  a  possible  hierarchy  in  the  Kingdom,  Christ  set  up 
a  child  as  the  model  ruler  or  prince  of  the  new  realm.  Then 
he  went  on  to  declare,  and  that  with  great  vehemence,  that  any 
one  who  sought  to  fetter  and  cripple  the  little  ones,  or  baby 
believers,  in  the  Kingdom  might  well  have  a  millstone  hanged 
about  his  neck  and  be  cast  into  the  sea.  In  default  of  a  creed, 
the  Master  expected  his  followers  to  have  faith;  in  place  of  ec- 
clesiastical laws,  he  judged  the  members  of  his  Kingdom  upon  a 
humanitarian  basis  —  did  they  feed  the  hungry,  clothe  the  naked, 
and  visit  those  in  prison?  Faith  and  love  —  nothing  else  was 
pertinent  or  valuable,  and  as  for  the  legalism  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, all  that  the  new  believer  had  to  do  was  to  select  from  the 
book  Deuteronomy  the  commandment  to  love  God,  from  'Leviti- 
cus the  law  of  love  for  one's  neighbor. 

THE  GOSPELS  AND  THE  EPISTLES 

But  this  is  only  one  side  of  the  story.  When  the  disciples 
went  forth  to  spread  the  glad  tidings,  they  had  to  use  forms,  as 
though  they  were  carrying  in  buckets  the  water  that  had  bubbled 
up  from  the  fountain  of  spiritual  life.  When,  later,  the  Gospel 
was  carried  to  Europeans,  who  had  no  sense  or  intuition  of 
Galilean  mysticism,  the  forms  became  unusually  severe.  This 
resulted  in  two  distinct  but  perhaps  harmonious  types  of  Christi- 
anity. On  the  surface  of  the  New  Testament  there  seems  to  be  a 
dualism  of  Gospels  and  Epistles,  with  The  Acts  of  the  Apostles 
serving  as  a  flimsy  bridge  between  them.  The  second  Christi- 
anity, which  contrasts  so  harshly  with  the  first,  is  attributed  to 
the  speculative  mind  and  missionary  zeal  of  St.  Paul,  who  is 
sometimes  referred  to  as  the  real  founder  of  Christianity. 


19g  CHRISTIANITY 

The  books  o£  the  New  Testament  were  written,  for  the  most 
part,  in  reverse  order-— first  the  Epistles  of  later  Christianity, 
then  the  Gospels  o£  the  original  one.  These  stand  for  what 
Lessing  called  "  The  Christian  Religion  "  and  "  The  Religion  of 
Christ/'  The  Gospels,  especially  the  synoptic  ones,  are  expres- 
sive o£  Jewish  belief  in  the  Messiah  and  Son  of  Man.  The 
Epistles,  particularly  the  earlier  ones  o£  St.  Paul,  contain  a  record 
of  Gentile  faith  in  Christ,  the  Son  of  God.  Jewish  Christians  in 
Galilee  had  glided  into  the  new  faith  as  though  it  were  only  a 
hyper-Hebraic  doctrine  promulgated  by  some  new  prophet  of 
the  old  order,  another  John  the  Baptist  or  a  leader  on  whom  the 
mantle  of  Elijah  had  fallen  a  second  time.  Gentile  Christians 
were  offered  a  different  kind  of  Christ  and  that  by  means  of 
arguments  adapted  to  their  own  type  of  mind.  The  Gospels 
relate  the  things  said  and  done  by  the  Prophet  of  Nazareth  in 
Galilee  and  Judea,  The  Epistles  assert  what  may  be  said  of  him 
and  what  should  be  done  in  his  name.  Jesus  fulfills  prophecy 
and  goes  about  doing  good.  Christ  is  the  one  by  whom  the 
world  of  things  was  made  and  through  whom  the  world  of  men 
is  to  be  saved.  It  was  the  second  or  Gentile  view  that  prevailed; 
the  Jewish  one  passed  away  as  a  form  of  faith  and  was  well-nigh 
extinct  at  the  time  The  Epistle  to*  the  Hebrews  was  written. 
Now,  it  is  the  original,  Galilean  view  that  men  of  letters  and 
advanced  theologians  wish  to  revive.  They  take  this  to  be  true 
Christianity  and  recommend  some  sort  of  return  to  the  original 
Jewish  Christianity. 

THE  RELIGION  OF  CHRIST 

A  great  deal  of  the  enthusiasm  for  what  Lessing  called  "  The 
Religion  ,o£  Christ  "  is  due  to  the  historical  spirit  of  the  present 
age,  which  often  prefers  the  root  of  an  idea  or  institution  to  the 
fruit  that  has  grown  from  it.  Likewise  is  it  attributable  to  our 
impressionism;  we  like  to  visualize  a  situation  or  have  it  made 
graphic  much  more  than  we  care  to  think  about  it  and  get 
concepts  out  of  it.  Then,  the  world  has  been  so  fully  supplied 
with  theological  Christianity  that  its  appetite  is  nearly  surfeited. 
Hence  the  suggestion  of  a  free  and  formless  Christianity  is  bound 


i  'I??rT>i ,/'•'  ,$A  '""'?  '$&** 

", -TTT- i    ,,,-,    X,     ,>,>,"''  ,  .,*~~r*m*l*>       ,        Jl     1"     4|f  J    lif  "*     '-•*  '*».>''•   «'    '^" 

;•. ';-  -,. •:  ;^' f "::;'  -,; *.,;, ;<  •  *<.:. \ >,:;-, vi*«wfe,;*;'  j 


THE  ALTAR  IN  THE  BASILICA  OF  ST.  PAUL 
Many  of  the  early  Christian  churches  were  adaptations  of  the 


Roman  basilicas. 


(facing  pay?  196) 


PAULIN1SM 

to  make  appeal.  These  are  some  of  the  reasons  why  intellectuals 
are  opposed  to  St.  Paul,  even  when  they  themselves  are  among  his 
converts.  They  overlook  the  fact  that  the  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles 
was  a  diplomat  and,  as  an  "  ambassador  of  Christ/'  had  to  adapt 
himself  to  the  foreign  courts  of  faith.  Indeed,  one  might  say,  in 
the  jargon  of  the  day,  that  St.  Paul  was  a  salesman  who  knew  the 
real  needs  of  those  to  whom  he  would  "  sell "  his  Gospel.  He 
knew  that  there  would  be  no  spiritual  market  for  Jewish  Chris- 
tianity even  if  it  were  put  in  an  attractive  form.  Of  all  the  Apos- 
tles, he  was  the  one  who  understood  what  Christ  meant  when 
he  spoke  o£  new  bottles  for  new  wine. 

In  defense  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  if  defense  be  needed,  it  may 
be  said  that  he  adapted  his  message  to  his  hearer  and  to  the  Greek 
became  as  a  Greek.  When,  therefore,  on  his  second  missionary 
journey,  he  passed  over  into  Europe  by  way  of  Macedonia,  he 
felt  that  he  had  to  prepare  a  message  agreeable  and  suitable  to 
the  spiritual  needs  of  the  converts  to  be.  Accordingly  he  closed 
his  eyes  to  Jewish  Christianity,  even  though  he  was,  as  he  said, 
"  a  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews,"  and  began  to  adjust  his  vision  to  the 
western  world.  The  conversion  of  the  Gentiles  to  a  semi- Jewish 
faith  was  his  supreme  vocation  and,  as  he  said  in  his  spirit  of 
predestination,  it  was  for  this  cause  that  God  had  separated  him 
from  his  mother's  womb.  Now,  to  realize  such  an  extraordinary 
mission  and  make  the  Gentiles  real  converts  to  Christianity  and 
not  proselytes  to  a  kind  of  Jewish  faith,  he  had  to  present  suitable 
objects  of  belief.  These  were,  in  the  main,  the  God  in  whom  we 
live  and  move  and  have  our  being,  not  the  Jewish  Jehovah;  the 
Christ  of  God,  not  the  Messiah  of  Israel;  the  salvation  of  the 
world,  not  the  restoration  of  the  kingdom. 

PAULINISM 

When  St.  Paul  presented  this  larger  Gospel  of  spiritual  Chris- 
tianity, he  found  it  expedient  to  minimize  and  even  ignore  the 
historical  facts  of  Christ's  earthly  career  and  place  dogmas  in  their 
stead.  'He  had  been  criticized  by  the  Twelve  Apostles,  or  those 
who  presumed  to  speak  for  them,  because  he  had  not  seen  the 
Lord  with  eyes  of  flesh  in  the  days  of  his  Galilean  ministry.  This 


Ig8  CHRISTIANITY 

question  of  fact  he  meets  with  the  sentiment  of  mysticism;  he  had 
seen  the  Lord  with  eyes  of  faith  on  the  road  to  Damascus.  This 
may  not  have  satisfied  the  Hebraizing  Christians  in  their  realism, 
but  it  sounded  well  to  the  Hellenizing  Christians  in  their  ideal- 
ism. St.  Paul  was  evidently  emboldened  by  his  unhistorical  but 
spiritual  conception  of  Christianity,  for  in  the  same  First  Epistle 
to  the  Corinthians  he  goes  so  far  as  to  assert,  when  he  is  giving 
directions  for  the  proper  administration  of  the  Lord's  Supper, 
that  the  actual  participants  in  the  matter  had  not  communicated 
the  facts  to  him,  but,  as  he  asserted,  "  I  have  received  from  the 
Lord  that  which  also  I  delivered  unto  you."  3  This  single  state- 
ment, in  itself  of  relative  importance  only,  may  be  taken  and 
considered  as  the  high-water  mark  in  the  anti-historical  concep- 
tion of  Christianity  as  entertained  by  the  great  Apostle  to  the 
Gentiles.  Grievous  to  the  Judaizing  Christians,  it  was  doubtless 
welcome  to  the  Gentile  converts  who,  like  their  fond  Apostle, 
accepted  their  Christ  as  a  person  wholly  detached  from  time  and 
place,  tradition  and  circumstance. 

So  zealous  was  St.  Paul  for  his  own  ^European  evangel  that 
he  repudiated  both  the  Jew  and  the  Jewish  Jesus.  He  initiated 
his  literary  work,  in  the  First  Epistle  to  the  Thessalonians,  by 
referring  to  his  Macedonian  message  as  the  "  Gospel  of  God." 
He  blames  the  Jews  for  the  crucifixion  of  Christ,  for  killing  their 
own  prophets,  and  persecuting  him  and  his  brethren.4  In  the 
Epistle  to  the  Gdatians,  he  likens  the  Jew  to  the  child  of  the 
bondwoman  who  was  cast  out;  the  Gentile,  to  the  son  of  the  free 
woman,  and  rightful  heir  to  the  promise  of  God.  In  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans,  the  Israelites  are  compared  to  the  branches  that 
were  broken  off  the  olive  in  order  that  Gentile  branches  might 
be  grafted  in  to  partake  of  the  fatness  of  the  tree.  As  for  the 
"  King  of  the  Jews,"  the  historical  Jesus,  St.  Paul  comes  to  the 
place  in  his  idealism  where,  in  speaking  of  the  faith  enjoyed  by 
the  Corinthians,  he  says,  "  henceforth  know  we  no  man  after  the 
flesh  "  and  "  though  we  have  known  Christ  after  the  flesh,  yet  now 
henceforth  know  we  him  no  more,"5  These  must  have  been 
severe  sentences  for  the  Jewish  Christians  to  read  and  strident 
also  in  the  minds  of  those  who  today  strive  to  preserve  the 

s  I  Cor.  XI,  23.  4  1  Thcss.  II,  15.  5  #  Cor.  V,  16. 


TWO  TENDENCIES  IN  THE  GOSPELS        IQ9 

connection  between  faith  in  Christ  and  the  facts  of  actual  life. 
But  doubtless  it  was  necessary  for  the  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles  to 
take  this  trenchant  point  of  view  in  order  to  establish  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  new  faith. 

Two  TENDENCIES  IN  THE  GOSPELS 

Did  this  duality  of  the  Christian  religion  exist  in  the  days  of 
its  Founder  or  was  it  a  diremption  created  by  the  cosmopolitan 
Paul  in  his  conflict  with  the  provincial  Peter?  Apparently  the 
Author  of  the  Christian  idea  had  two  interpretations  in  mind 
—  Jewish  and  Gentile.  He  sought  to  initiate  a  world  movement, 
"beginning  at  Jerusalem/'  and  yet  showed  no  disposition  to 
Judaize  the  world.  The  testimony  on  this  important  point  must 
be  taken  from  the  Gospels,  which  were  written  after  both  types  of 
Christianity  had  expressed  themselves.  Now,  the  Gospels  are 
not  histories;  they  lack  the  spirit  of  objectivity;  the  Jewish  tone 
of  St.  Matthew  seems  to  reveal  a  Petrine  spirit,  just  as  the  Gentile 
note  of  St.  Luke,  the  only  Gentile  author  in  the  Bible,  is 
thoroughly  Pauline.  A  striking  instance  of  this  difference  is 
found  in  the  fact  that  the  Gospel  of  Matthew,  in  recording  the 
sending  forth  of  the  Twelve  Disciples,  quotes  the  order  given  by 
their  Master,  who  said,  "  Go  not  into  the  way  of  the  Gentiles, 
but  go  ye  rather  to  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel." 6  To 
match  this  procedure,  the  Gospel  of  Luke  records  the  fact  that 
the  Seventy,  a  number  equal  to  the  traditional  number  of  the 
Gentile  nations,  having  been  sent  forth,  returned  with  great 
enthusiasm  over  their  strange  mission  and  evoked  still  further 
feeling  from  their  Master,  who  said,  "  I  beheld  Satan  as  lightning 
fall  from  heaven."7  It  seemed  to  him  as  though  at  last  the 
"  prince  of  this  world,"  the  old  ruler  of  the  Gentiles,  had  been 
cast  out  in  his  name.  Christ  was  enthusiastic  about  the  Gentiles 
although  he  himself  touched  but  the  borders  of  their  land. 

However,  in  justice  to  the  Gospel  of  Matthew,  which  seems  to 

be  so  Jewish  in  tone,  it  should  be  noted  that  this  conservative 

document  does  not  fail  to  mention  something  recognizable  as 

that  major,  cosmopolitan  Christianity  which  St.  Paul  shaped 

•  Matthew  X,  5.  7  Lu&  X,  18. 


2oo  •  CHRISTIANITY 

and  carried  out  o£  Palestine.  This  is  recorded  in  connection  with 
the  episode  at  Caesarea  Philippi,  a  week  before  the  Transfigura- 
tion. There,  up  in  the  north  country,  the  Founder  of  a  new 
religion  questions  his  disciples  as  to  the  impression  he  has  been 
making,  only  to  learn  that  his  mission  to  the  Jews  gave  the  im- 
pression that  he  was  a  John  the  Baptist,  an  Elijah,  a  Jeremiah,  or 
some  nondescript  prophet.  Thereupon  Christ  abandoned  his 
Messianic  role  as  well  as  his  socializing  activity  and  began  to 
adapt  himself  to  the  character  which  St.  Paul  exalted  and  by 
which  he  is  known  within  the  Church.  From  being  Reformer, 
he  became  Redeemer;  his  Kingdom  became  less  and  less  social, 
more  and  more  spiritual. 

Not  only  Matthew,  but  also  the  other  two  synoptic  evangelists 
make  mention  of  the  episode  at  Caesarea  Philippi;  but  they 
observe  nothing  extraordinary  about  it.  But  when  the  essence  o£ 
Christianity  and  the  life  of  Christ  became  independent  topics  of 
analytical  study,  the  two  phases  of  Christ's  work  were  set  into 
juxtaposition.  The  German  Deist  Reimarus  (1694-1765)  as- 
serted that  the  aim  of  Jesus  was  purely  political  and  that  religion 
was  used  as  a  means  to  the  end  of  setting  up  a  theocratic  king- 
dom. This  flagrant  view  overlooked  the  fact  that  Christ  refused 
to  act  as  even  a  judge,  escaped  the  multitude  that  tried  to  make 
him  king,  and  declared  that  his  Kingdom  was  not  of  this  world. 
A  much  more  temperate  conception  of  the  change  from  the 
political  to  the  theological  was  taken  by  the  German  theologian 
Carl  Hase,  who,  in  the  first  scientific  life  of  Christ  ever  written 
(1829),  concluded  that  the  Messianic  role  that  Christ  assumed 
and  the  reform  he  wished  to  inaugurate  were  only  a  "tragic 
error  "  and  that  the  redemptive  mission  he  adopted  later  was  his 
true  calling  from  the  beginning. 

THE  POLITICAL  INTERPRETATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

At  the  present  time,  after  so  much  professional  matter  has 
been  written  about  the  essence  of  Christianity  and  the  life  of 
Christ,  we  find  that  the  more  advanced  minds,  as  we  may  call 
them,  are  inclined  toward  the  political  rather  than  the  theological 
view  of  Christ  and  Christianity,  According  to  Tolstoi's  views, 


POLITICAL  INTERPRETATION  2OI 

set  forth  in  his  work  My  Religion,  the  obvious  aim  of  the  Gospel 
was  a  communistic  Utopia  of  which  the  constitution  will  be  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount.  In  the  mind  of  Bernard  Shaw,  who  ex- 
pressed himself  somewhat  volubly  and  jauntily  in  the  preface  to 
Androdes  and  the  Lion,  the  change  from  "  communism  "  to 
"  salvationism  "  was  what  Hase  had  previously  called  the  tragic 
error  in  the  career  of  the  Nazarene.  H.  G.  Wells  has  expressed 
himself  in  a  more  appropriate  tone  than  that  of  his  co-patriot  and 
with  just  as  much  more  wisdom,  yet  he  does  not  fail  to  identify  the 
Gospel  with  some  sort  of  political  propaganda: 

"  It  was  not  merely  a  moral  and  social  revolution  that  Jesus 
proclaimed;  it  is  clear  from  a  score  of  indications  that  his  teach- 
ing had  a  political  bent  of  the  plainest  sort.  It  is  true  that  he 
said  his  kingdom  was  not  of  this  world,  that  it  was  in  the  hearts 
of  men  and  not  upon  a  throne;  but  it  is  equally  clear  wherever 
and  in  what  measure  his  kingdom  was  set  up  in  the  hearts  of 
men,  the  outer  world  would  be  in  that  measure  revolutionized 
and  made  new.  .  .  .  The  whole  tenor  of  the  opposition  to  him 
and  the  circumstances  of  his  trial  and  execution  show  clearly 
that  to  his  contemporaries  he  seemed  to  propose  plainly  and  did 
propose  plainly  to  change  and  fuse  and  enlarge  all  human  life."  8 

Such  political  and  social  conceptions  of  Christianity  are  quite 
interesting;  amiable  in  tone  and  sincere  in  presentation,  they 
reveal  admirable  traits  in  the  minds  of  those  who  maintain  and 
publish  them.  But  do  they  rejoice  in  that  objectivity  which  the 
true  study  of  history  requires?  Outwardly  are  they  anything 
more  than  examples  of  literary  style,  inwardly  more  than  personal 
opinions  expressed  in  behalf  of  political  beliefs?  Tolstoi  seems 
to  twist  the  Gospel  to  make  it  fit  into  his  social  scheme.  Bernard 
Shaw  would  interpret  Christ  as  a  Fabian  Socialist,  while  H.  G. 
Wells  appears  to  use  the  history  of  primitive  Christianity  to 
decorate  what,  while  called  an  Outline  of  History,  is  just  as  much 
a  monumental  essay  on  the  social  situation  in  the  XXth  century. 
Doubtless  we  should  have  a  more  devout  Church  and  a  more 
decent  State,  since  the  present  forms  of  ecclesiastical  and  political 
organization  are  far  from  ideal,  but  in  our  desire  to  create  truer 
believers  and  better  citizens  we  are  not  justified  in  turning  the 

s  Outline  of  History,  Ch.  XXIX,  §  2. 


202  CHRISTIANITY 

four  Gospels  into  so  many  pamphlets  supposed  to  serve  our 
political  purposes.  We  must  first  be  sure  that  we  recognize  the 
personality  of  Christ  and  realize  the  plan  he  proposed  for  the 
general  betterment  of  mankind. 

In  order  to  identify  the  political  plan  or  social  pattern  that 
Christ  had  in  mind,  we  had  better  determine  as  best  we  can 
what  manner  of  man  he  was.  It  is  natural  to  style  Christ  a 
prophet  and  thus  throw  his  personality  back  upon  a  Hebrew 
prototype.  But  the  moment  we  do  this  we  begin  to  realize  that 
it  was  only  in  a  general  way  that  his  mind  was  of  the  prophetic 
order.  This  it  was  doubtless  in  its  ethical  earnestness,  but  not  at 
all  in  its  psychological  form.  The  mind  of  Christ  was  singularly 
wanting  in  visions  as  he  in  his  prevailing  mood  was  just  as  lack- 
ing in  ecstasy.  He  had  none  of  the  "  special,  sudden  moments " 
that  Dostoievsky  refers  to  in  the  instance  of  one  of  his  religious 
heroes.  Unlike  Isaiah,  Christ  saw  not  the  Lord  upon  a  throne 
crowned  with  seraphim,  and  unlike  Ezekiel  he  had  no  vision  of 
the  glory  of  God  in  the  form  of  four  cherubim  and  four  wheels. 
Likewise,  his  conception  of  all  men  assembled  in  the  Kingdom 
of  God  was  in  no  sense  comparable  to  Peter's  vision  of  a  vast 
sheet  let  down  from  heaven  to  earth  and  containing  all  manner 
of  strange  creatures.  It  was  rather  the  homely  simile  of  a  net 
drawn  up  from  the  sea  and  containing  a  variety  of  well-known 
fish.  He  spoke  with  familiarity  of  the  things  above,  but  never 
for  a  moment  did  he  talk  like  St.  Paul,  who  claimed  that  once 
he  was  caught  up  into  the  third  heaven,  where  he  heard  things 
unspeakable  and  impossible  to  repeat.  Those  who  were  as- 
sociated with  Christ  had  their  visions,  at  his  Baptism,  Transfigura- 
tion, and  Crucifixion^  but  these  were  absent  from  his  mind.  At 
the  time  of  his  triumphant  entry  into  Jerusalem,  he  prayed  say- 
ing, "Father,  glorify  thy  son";  but  when  there  came  a  voice 
from  heaven  saying,  "  I  have  both  glorified  it  and  will  glorify 
it  again,"  he  said,  "  This  voice  came  not  because  of  me,  but  for 
your  sakes."  The  voices  that  he  heard  and  the  visions  he  beheld 
were  of  an  interior  source  and  were  marked  by  a  moral  rather 
than  a  mystical  form.  His  consciousness  of  God  was  such  as  to 
render  special  revelations  unnecessary. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  CHRIST'S  MIND     203 

THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  CHRIST'S  MIND 

The  naturalism  of  Christ's  mind,  which  Kenan's  Life  of 
Jesus  (1863)  did  not  fail  to  observe,  must  not  be  allowed  to  es- 
cape us.  We  have  observed  already  that  the  perceptions  of 
Christ  were  directed  toward  the  minor  objects  of  nature.  His 
art  was  akin  to  that  of  a  Dutch  painter,  his  appreciation  of  simple 
humanity  quite  in  the  genre  style.  Just  as  naive  was  he  with 
persons  and  cities.  The  cities  that  exalted  themselves  would  be 
laid  low;  in  the  Day  of  Judgment,  it  would  be  more  tolerable 
for  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  than  for  Bethsaida  and  Chorazin. 
Exalted  personalities  did  not  impress  him;  Pilate  and  Herod, 
Annas  and  Caiaphas  were  but  as  shadows,  for  it  was  the  fisher- 
man, the  ploughman,  the  child  who  had  meaning  for  him. 
Such  persons  he  treated  with  high  regard  and  promised  them 
the  Kingdom,  but  his  attitude  toward  men  of  high  degree  was 
that  of  irony,  the  irony  of  Socrates,  of  Moliere,  of  Ibsen.  Hence 
the  true  portrait  of  Christ  was  painted  by  Rembrandt  rather  than 
Raphael. 

In  noble  default  of  emotional  enlightenment  peculiar  to  the 
prophetic  mind,  Christ  employed  ethical  intuition  and  sym- 
pathetic insight.  He  made  intellect  and  will,  not  emotion,  the 
modus  vivendi  of  his  view  and  asserted  no  claim  to  any  excep- 
tional revelation  from  on  high.  In  his  mind,  the  natural  and 
supernatural  were  both  alike.  But  he  did  lay  claim  to  direct 
knowledge  of  God  and  thus  in  the  exaltation  of  prayer  said,  "  O 
righteous  father,  the  world  hath  not  known  thee,  but  I  have 
known  thee."9  In  addition  to  this,  he  kept  asserting  that  he 
spoke  as  his  Father  taught  him  and  that  he  had  been  given  a  com- 
mandment as  to  what  he  should  speak  and  that  he  spoke  not  of 
himself.  This,  he  said,  was  the  case  with  his  works  also.  As 
the  words  that  he  uttered,  so  the  works  that  he  performed;  the 
Father  that  dwelt  within  him  by  love  showed  him  all  the  works 
of  God,  which  Christ  himself  was  expected  to  do  and  finish. 

To  Christ's  hearers  these  claims  seemed  extraordinary  to  the 
point  o£  being  blasphemous,  but  in  the  mind  of  him  who  made 
them  they  were  perfectly  natural  experiences  and  reactions.  The 

9  John  XVII,  25. 


204  CHRISTIANITY 

Psalmist  had  an  inkling  of  this  spiritual  secret  when  he  declared 
that  wisdom  and  strength  were  to  be  found  in  the  mouths  of 
babes  and  sucklings.  St.  Paul  had  a  glimpse  of  it  when  he  said 
that  what  was  hidden  from  the  wisdom  of  men  might  be  found 
by  the  "foolishness  of  God."  But  Christ  had  the  power  and  the 
will  to  gather  these  slanting  rays  of  insight  into  a  steady  light 
of  intuition.  In  order  to  gain  sympathetic  understanding  of  his 
psychological  method,  we  do  well  to  turn  aside  from  the  prophet 
and  mystic  and  turn  to  the  poet  and  moralist,  since  inspiration 
that  enables  one  to  "  see  life  steadily  and  see  it  whole "  and 
conscience  which  tends  to  make  one  aware  of  life's  values  are 
better  guides  than  vision  and  ecstasy.  From  the  point  of  view  of 
a  clear  mind  and  strong  will,  the  method  of  Christ,  while  never 
rationalistic,  may  be  compared  with  the  Socratic  ideal  of  wisdom 
through  self-knowledge  and  Kant's  conception  of  moral  insight 
by  means  of  the  Categorical  Imperative.  Christ's  intuition  was 
much  warmer  and  more  intimate;  more  fully  was  it  surcharged 
with  humanistic  and  practical  motives,  as  though  he  would 
gladly  have  all  men  take  his  point  of  view  and  apply  his  methods; 
likewise,  since  he  was  not  an  abstract  philosopher  but  a  social 
teacher,  his  ideas  were  anthropomorphic.  But  the  pure  tone  of 
the  philosopher  was  ever  that  of  his  message. 

CHRIST  No  REFORMER 

Christ  was  no  more  a  hectic  reformer  than  he  was  an  emo- 
tional mystic.  His  main  idea  was  that  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
It  was  the  only  conception  of  nature  that  interested  him  and  the 
natural  order  afforded  him  his  best  analogies  to  the  forms  and 
functions  of  the  divine  order  —  a  grain  of  mustard  seed,  a  grain 
field,  a  vineyard,  things  capable  of  growth.  Plato  preferred  a 
world  of  ideas  or  intellectual  patterns,  Kant  a  table  of  categories 
as  a  guide  for  the  human  understanding.  Modern  science  pro- 
ceeds according  to  natural  laws  and  statistical  schemes.  Shake- 
speare's drama  rejoiced  in  the  insight  that  came  from  poetical 
imagery;  Ibsen's  plays  seek  to  penetrate  life  through  symbols* 
Since  man  is  pathetically  finite,  it  is  necessary  for  him  to  avail 
himself  of  ideas,  formulas,  images,  analogies,  and  the  like  for 


CHRIST  NO  REFORMER  205 

the  sake  of  gaining  insight  into  what  exists  and  takes  place  in 
the  world  of  forms  and  values.  Hence  the  parables  of  Christ  are 
not  to  be  left  out  of  account  when  one  is  making  up  his  intellec- 
tual inventory  of  truth.  Now  it  was  in  the  world  of  human 
values  rather  than  in  the  order  of  physical  truths  that  Christ  pro- 
ceeded when  he  decided  to  use  the  idea  of  a  divine  realm  as  his 
guide.  This  was  his  Ideal  Republic,  his  City  of  God,  his  Moral 
World  Order.  When  we  consider  that  the  universe,  where  it  is 
not  empty  space,  is  only  clusters  of  gases  or  a  series  of  waves, 
the  idea  of  it  as  a  kind  of  divine  realm  does  not  seem  altogether 
out  of  the  way. 

But  the  practical  application  of  Nazarene  idealism  to  the  de- 
veloped state  of  affairs  in  actual  civilization  is  another  matter 
and  a  more  serious  question.  If  the  second  Adam  had  been  in 
the  place  of  the  first  one  and  the  world  had  started  along  an 
idealistic  line,  the  problem  of  the  application  of  Christianity  to 
civilization  would  not  be  confronting  us.  But  when  today  we 
begin  to  talk  about  "applied  Christianity,"  we  have  before  us 
the  traditions  of  Greek  culture  and  Roman  civilization,  the  sub- 
sequent history  of  Europe  and  the  present  condition  of  the  whole 
western  world,  to  say  nothing  of  the  Orient.  How,  then,  can 
we  consider  the  suggestions  of  literary  men,  such  as  Tolstoi, 
Bernard  Shaw,  H.  G.  Wells,  and  others,  and  assume  the  pos- 
sibility of  recasting  the  world  in  a  Christian  mold?  Those  who 
are  attempting  such  recasting,  as  the  Bolsheviki,  are  not  using  any 
religious  pattern  at  all. 

We  are  not  certain  just  how  Christ  wished  his  words  to  be 
taken,  even  if  he  did  conclude  his  Sermon  on  the  Mount  with  a 
dire  prediction  concerning  those  who  were  only  hearers  and  not 
doers  of  his  word.  How  simple  to  repeat  that  epigram,  but  how 
difficult  to  heed  it  in  any  real  way!  Christ  himself  provided  no 
program,  gave  no  charter,  wrote  no  constitution,  nor  laid  down 
any  really  new  law.  He  spoke  loyally  of  the  Mosaic  law,  declared 
that  it  must  be  fulfilled  in  every  jot  and  tittle,  and  assured  men 
that  his  aim  was  not  to  destroy  but  to  fulfill.  His  idea  seems 
to  have  been  to  excel  and  exceed  the  law.  This  spiritual  excess 
he  indicated  in  five  particulars,  which  was  the  nearest  he  ever 
came  to  any  sort  of  legislation,  Thou  shalt  not  kill  —  be  not 


206  CHRISTIANITY 

angry!  Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery  —  lust  not!  Thou 
shalt  perform  unto  the  Lord  thine  oaths  —  swear  not  at  all!  An 
eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth  —  resist  not  evil!  Love 
thy  neighbor  and  hate  thine  enemy  —  love  your  enemies!  Now, 
these  can  hardly  be  understood  as  commandments,  for  they  are 
more  like  a  set  of  virtues  than  a  code  of  laws.  They  are  indeed 
the  characteristics  of  those  who  are  in  the  Kingdom  of  God;  the 
inventor  of  them  laid  them  down  as  the  logical  conditions  of 
entrance  into  that  realm.  Hence  they  are  not  to  be  taken  in  the 
spirit  of  Moses  or  any  other  law-giver,  but  more  after  the  manner 
of  Socrates  and  Kant. 

There  are  places  in  the  Gospels,  evangelical  episodes  we  might 
call  them,  where  Christ  seemed  on  the  point  of  making  a  specific 
application  of  his  spiritual  principles.  But  does  any  one  of 
these  afford  a  case  in  point?  The  rich  young  man,  who  had 
always  kept  the  commandments  but  was  still  seeking  eternal 
life,  was  advised  to  get  rid  of  his  riches  by  giving  them  to  the 
poor  and  follow  the  master.  A  master  poet  or  painter  might 
have  given  similar  advice  to  a  young  man  with  artistic  ambitions. 
The  disciples  themselves  had  left  all,  their  boats  and  nets  and 
offices,  to  follow  him,  but  was  that  anything  more  than  a  practi- 
cal adjustment  peculiar  to  their  new  vocation?  When  it  came 
to  the  question  of  open  rebellion  against  the  Roman  government 
in  Galilee,  to  take  a  different  example,  Christ  took  cognizance 
of  the  revolts  staged  by  Theudas  and  Judas  of  Galilee,  who  re- 
sisted taxation,10  but  showed  more  compassion  for  their  souls 
than  sympathy  for  their  political  acts. 

CHRIST  ANI>  MONEY  POWER 

Christ  was  so  constituted  that  he  could  have  no  feeling  for 
money  or  respect  for  money  power;  he  took  no  pains  to  conceal 
his  contempt  for  the  rich.  How  could  one  serve  both  God  and 
Mammon?  The  famous  story  of  Lazarus  and  the  rich  man  was 
told  apparently  to  show  that  Dives  was  condemned  to  torment 
chiefly  because  of  his  wealth.  Like  every  idealist  —  philosopher, 
artist,  scientist,  and  the  like— -Christ  saw  no  value  in  wealth, 

10  Acts  V,  36-37. 


GOD  AND  CAESAR  207 

since  his  vision  was  fixed  on  something  remote  and  intangible. 
On  the  subject  of  public  financing  by  means  of  taxation,  he  re- 
fused to  be  serious.  When,  for  example,  the  question  of  personal 
taxation  came  up,  he  dismissed  it  with  irony. 

"  What  thinkest  thou,  Simon,  of  whom  do  the  kings  of  the 
earth  take  custom  or  tribute;  or  of  their  own  children  or  of 
strangers  ?  Peter  saith  unto  him,  of  strangers.  Jesus  saith  unto 
him,  then  are  the  children  free.  Notwithstanding,  lest  we  should 
offend  them,  go  thou  to  the  sea  and  cast  a  hook  and  take  up  the 
fish  that  first  cometh  up.  And  when  thou  hast  opened  his  mouth 
thou  shalt  find  a  piece  of  money  [sic].  That  take  and  give  it 
unto  them  for  thee  and  me!  " 

The  question  concerning  Jewish  tribute  to  Caesar  was  far  more 
important.  It  was  brought  up  to  trap  the  Nazarene  idealist. 
This  problem  he  took  more  seriously,  answered  the  question 
more  deliberately  but  with  the  same  irony  so  reminiscent  of 
Socrates.  "  Show  me  the  tribute  money.  And  they  brought  him 
a  penny.  And  he  saith  unto  them,  whose  is  this  image  and  in- 
scription? They  say  unto  him,  Caesar's.  Then  saith  he  unto 
them,  Render  therefore  unto  Caesar  the  things  which  are 
Caesar's,  and  unto  God  the  things  that  are  God's.  When  they 
heard  these  words,  they  marvelled  and  left  him  and  went  their 
way."  When  we  consider  just  how  much  in  Christ's  mind  God 
would  have  to  share  with  Caesar,  the  irony  of  the  episode  seems 
complete. 

GOD  AND  CAESAR 

How  are  we  to  draw  the  line  between  Caesar  and  God,  political 
power  and  spiritual  influence?  We  cannot  change  from  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  to  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
because  the  Sermon  with  its  nine  beatitudes  and  five  laws  does 
not  furnish  us  with  even  the  first  principles  of  government  and 
business.  The  Caesarean  scheme  of  social  life  has  not  been  a 
success,  perhaps;  when  we  see  how  it  has  led  to  greed  and  war, 
by  allying  itself  with  Mammon  and  Mars  instead  of  God  and 
Christ,  we  have  a  right  to  feel  that  it  has  been  an  eminent  failure. 
But  this  does  not  justify  us  in  feeling  further  that  we  should  drop 


208  CHRISTIANITY 

Caesar  altogether  and  turn  State  into  Church.  If  Christ  had 
worked  out  a  code  of  laws  like  that  attributed  to  Moses  or  drawn 
up  such  a  constitution  as  Lycurgus  was  said  to  have  given  Sparta, 
the  situation  would  be  different.  Then  his  plan  could  have  been 
applied  and  tried  out  and,  if  it  had  been  after  the  manner  of  his 
practical  idealism,  would  doubtless  have  been  a  success.  But  the 
part  of  dictatorial  legislator  was  one  that  he  shunned.  Indeed, 
he  went  so  far  as  to  refuse  the  function  of  judgeship  which 
Solomon  before  him  had  exercised  in  such  a  brilliant  way  as  to 
convince  people  of  his  divine  wisdom.  "  Who  made  me  a  judge 
or  divider  over  you?  " X1  was  his  interrogative  answer  to  one  of 
his  company  who  wished  him  to  settle  a  matter  of  inheritance 
between  two  brothers.  How,  then,  can  we  look  to  Christ  directly 
to  decide  between  nations,  as  France  and  Germany,  China  and 
Japan?  How  expect  him  to  settle  questions  of  prices,  rents, 
wages,  taxes?  His  office  is  obviously  different;  it  is  not  anything 
political  or  economic;  it  is  everything  ethical  and  religious. 

We  cannot  draw  a  vertical  line  placing  the  things  that  are 
God's  to  the  right,  the  things  that  are  Caesar's  to  the  left.  When 
that  was  tried,  as  at  the  communist  church  at  Jerusalem  and  the 
Kingdom  of  God  in  Munster,  the  Caesarean  things  overwhelmed 
and  finally  destroyed  the  things  of  the  divine  experiment.  But 
we  can  draw  the  line  horizontally  just  as  Christ  himself  did,  and 
then  we  shall  have  the  things  of  this  Caesarean  world— govern- 
ments, laws,  industries,  courts,  armies,  and  the  like — below; 
churches,  commandments,  beatitudes,  and  other  idealities  above. 
If  we  draw  this  line,  which  is  really  an  imaginary  but  true  one, 
we  shall  be  in  a  better  position  to  understand  the  situation  in  the 
theologic-political  world.  When  we  do  so  separate  the  Caesa- 
rean from  the  Christian  world,  we  do  no  more,  but  less,  in  theory 
than  the  nations  of  the  world  have  long  been  and  still  are  doing 
in  practice. 

Now,  what  part  can  Christianity  play  in  a  civilization  where, 
strictly  speaking,  there  are  no  Christian  governments  as  such? 
Must  it  retreat  to  a  cloister  and  let  the  world  take  care  of  itself? 
Not  at  all;  Christianity  has  a  decided  part  to  play,  although  it 
is  not  a  political  one.  The  Kingdom  of  God  proclaimed  by  Christ 

l*  Lufa  XII,  14. 


THE  IDEAL  KINGDOM  209 

may  be  able  to  function  like  the  Ideal  Republic  deduced  by  Plato. 
Between  the  two,  there  are  certain  analogies.  The  idea  of  the 
heavenly  Kingdom  was  implicit  in  the  Kingdom  of  David,  that 
of  the  Republic,  in  the  Spartan  State.  Both  the  Kingdom  and  the 
Republic  called  upon  the  individual  to  sacrifice  his  egoism  for 
the  sake  of  the  general  good,  and  both  alike  aimed  at  likeness  to 
God;  one  through  Love  and  the  other  by  means  of  Justice.  Then, 
both  tend  to  interiorize  the  essence  of  the  exterior  order;  accord- 
ing to  Christ,  the  Kingdom  is  within  the  soul;  according  to 
Plato,  the  State  is  an  enlargement  of  man,  who  is  looked  upon  in 
a  kind  of  anthropolitical  manner. 

THE  IDEAL  KINGDOM 

The  differences  between  the  Hellenic  and  Hebraic  ideals  be- 
come apparent  the  moment  one  recalls  the  practical  postulates  of 
the  Platonistic  State  —  the  threefold  caste-system,  the  community 
of  property  and  households,  the  aristocratic  form  of  government, 
and  the  introduction  of  the  ideal  order  by  a  philosophic  despot 
who  should  create  a  new  State  partly  by  force,  applied  to  the 
older  generation,  and  partly  by  pedagogy,  or  the  education  of  the 
youth  in  the  principles  of  the  new  order.  The  results  of  such 
Platonistic  politics  in  the  mind  of  both  its  author  and  his  followers 
is  that  the  Ideal  Republic  is  something  that  one  should  ever  bear 
in  mind  but  not  attempt  to  carry  out.  The  doctrine  of  the  Re- 
public should  be  normative,  influential,  and  the  basis  of  reform. 
Just  such  ideals  spring  out  of  the  Kingdom,  which  consists  not 
of  meat  and  drink,  proceeds  not  by  force,  and  cometh  without 
observation.  Both  Republic  and  Kingdom  operate  morally,  not 
politically;  both  make  for  citizenship  through  character,  not 
the  State  through  law. 

Another  illuminating  contrast,  that  of  Stoicism  and  Christi- 
anity, helps  to  adjust  the  ideal  of  the  Kingdom  to  the  actualities 
of  civilization.  In  Zeno,  the  founder  of  the  school,  we  have 
the  author  of  another  Republic,  a  kind  of  "  City  of  Zeus."  In 
certain  Roman  Stoics,  preeminently  Marcus  Aurelius,  we  find  an 
ethics  suggestive  of  Christianity.  We  observe  also  the  principles 
of  conscience  and  duty,  which  differentiated  Stoical  ethics  from 

S.T. — 15 


2IO  CHRISTIANITY 

the  objective  systems  of  Plato  and  Aristotle.  Then,  there  is  that 
Stoical  "  Cosmopolitanism  "  which  forbade  its  disciples  from  dis- 
tinguishing Greek  from  barbarian  and  urged  them  to  view  the 
whole  world  as  their  city.  But  the  most  suggestive  thing  in 
Stoicism  is  its  political  bearing.  The  remote  ideal  of  virtue,  the 
inward  sanction  of  duty,  and  the  general  sense  of  world-citizen- 
ship  would  tend  to  make  the  Stoic  an  ineffective  Roman  citizen. 
His  interests  were  elsewhere,  almost  anywhere  else  but  in  the 
actual  State;  why  concern  one's  Stoical  self  about  politics  when 
one  had  his  refuge  in  Nature,  Reason,  Virtue?  It  would  be  the 
Epicurean,  placing  his  affair  upon  happiness  and  immediate  wel- 
fare, who  might  be  counted  on  to  take  up  politics  and  make  the 
world  a  satisfactory  place  for  the  realization  of  immediate  satis- 
factions. But,  as  finely  observed  by  Lecky  in  his  History  of 
European  Morals,  it  was  habitually  the  worldly  Epicurean  who 
remained  aloof  from  public  life  and  the  unworldly  Stoic  who 
participated  in  practical  affairs. 

It  is  just  such  an  attitude  that  the  Christian  can  adopt  and  has 
ever  adopted  toward  the  State.  The  Platonist  did  not  attempt 
to  Platonize  Athens,  the  Stoic  to  Stoicize  Rome;  why  should  the 
Christian  feel  it  incumbent  upon  him  to  Christianize  Europe  or 
America  ?  There  were,  however,  Platonists  in  Athens  and  Stoics 
at  Rome  just  as  there  are  individual  Christians  and  vast  groups  of 
these  in  the  western  world.  But  this  is  not  to  say  that  they  should 
dream  of  placing  upon  the  governments  of  the  Occident  any  sort 
of  Christian  constitution  that  one  might  attempt  to  frame  at  this 
late  date.  However  much  one  may  desire  to  see  more  of  the  spirit 
of  Christ  spread  abroad  in  society  and  the  method  of  Christ  in- 
stilled into  law,  one  should  realize  that  the  State  is  a  political 
organization  and  only  indirectly  can  it  be  aesthetical  or  ethical 
or  religious.  But  this  is  a  matter  of  personal  opinion  rather  than 
a  historical  view.  However,  we  can  observe  that  it  is  the  present 
tendency  in  Protestant  Christianity  in  America  to  veer  from  the 
theological  to  the  political,  from  an  ideal  of  individual  salvation 
to  a  social  gospel. 

In  its  historical  development,  Christianity  was  destined  to  pass 
through  three  stages  — the  Galilean  and  Judean,  the  Graeco- 
Roman,  and  the  Germanico-Gallic.  It  was  first  Palestinian,  then 


THE  IDEAL  KINGDOM  2II 

Mediterranean,  and  then  European.  After  it  had  emerged  from 
its  Roman  domination,  it  assumed  the  characteristic  mediaeval 
forms  of  feudalism  and  Scholasticism.  We  must  analyze  these 
social  movements  for  the  purpose  of  observing  how  much  or  what 
form  of  Christianity  was  preserved  and  expressed  by  them. 


CHAPTER  IX 
FEUDAL  CIVILIZATION 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  FEUDALISM 

riS  BY  NO  MEANS  SIMPLE  TO  IDENTIFY  THE  "  KINGDOM  NOT  OF 
the  world  "  with  any  form  of  Christian  civilization;  unusually 
difficult  is  this  in  the  case  of  feudalism.  In  dealing  with 
what  was  a  definite  period  of  history,  from  the  IXth  to  the  XVth 
century,  we  are  in  doubt  about  how  to  define  it.  When  we  refer 
to  feudalism  in  terms  of  "  civilization/'  we  are  aware  of  the  fact 
that  the  constituents  of  the  feudal  organization  were  not  them- 
selves thoroughly  civilized  men;  they  began  as  barbarians  and 
were  not  wholly  free  from  their  raw  condition  when  their  system 
came  to  an  end.  If  we  speak  of  it  as  a  feudal  "system,"  we 
cannot  thus  disguise  the  fact  that  the  feudal  period  was  one 
of  mild  and  modified  anarchy.  Perhaps  little  better  could  be 
expected  of  Germanic  tribes  who  had  fallen  heir  to  a  spiritual 
religion,  a  school  of  philosophy,  and  a  system  of  government 
that  had  come  to  them  through  Christianity,  Greek  culture,  and 
Roman  civilization.  These  are  scarcely  discernible  in  feudal 
civilization. 

The  very  term  "  feudalism  "  is  of  obscure  origin.  It  is  often 
connected  with  the  Latin  word  fides,  faith,  but  it  is  more  likely 
that  it  sprang  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  word  vich,  meaning  cattle. 
This  derivation  is  rendered  plausible  by  the  fact  that,  among 
Teutonic  nations,  property  was  reckoned  in  terms  of  cattle  or 
the  number  of  head  upon  the  land;  and  it  was  with  property  that 
feudalism  was  concerned.  Now,  this  was  property  in  the  form 
of  land,  hence  feudalism  has  been  well  described  as  "  a  complete 
organization  of  society  through  the  medium  of  land-tenure,  in 
which  from  the  king  down  to  the  lowest  landholder  all  were 
bound  together  by  obligation  of  service  and  defense;  the  lord  to 
protect  his  vassal,  the  vassal  to  do  service  to  his  lord;  the  defense 
and  service  being  based  on  and  regulated  by  the  nature  and  ex- 


LAND  TENURE 

tent  of  the  land  held  by  the  one  or  the  other." x  Feudalism  of 
the  landholding  sort  was  most  fully  developed  In  England,  where 
its  influence  is  still  discernible.  Political  feudalism  was  elabo- 
rated most  extensively  in  Germany,  but  the  most  complete  de- 
velopment of  the  system  was  in  France,  whence  it  was  swept 
away  by  the  French  Revolution. 

LAND  TENURE 

In  order  to  gain  as  clear  an  idea  as  possible,  we  may  refer  to 
feudalism  as  a  system  of  relationships;  relations  to  things  and 
persons,  or  landholding  and  personal  relations.  Like  original 
civilization,  feudalism  was  the  adjustment  of  men  to  nature  and 
to  one  another.  The  feudal  rulers,  having  obtained  land  by 
confiscation  or  conquest  or  even  by  gift  of  the  owners,  found  it 
expedient  to  make  land  grants  to  men  of  lower  social  position. 
The  land  thus  obtained  by  the  tenant  from  the  lord  was  known 
as  a  "fief,"  a  "fee,"  or  a  "feud."  The  pay  for  the  use  of  the 
land  was  in  the  form  of  "  fealty,"  or  homage  and  service  to  be 
rendered  by  the  tenant  to  the  landlord.  This  was  the  personal 
relationship  growing  out  of  the  relation  to  land.  It  was  primarily 
the  relation  of  suzerain  and  vassal.  The  relationship  was  cele- 
brated by  means  of  "  investiture,"  according  to  which  the  vassal- 
tenant  exchanged  fealty  for  protection.  These  services,  it  might 
be  observed,  were  largely  of  a  military  character,  so  that  there 
is  a  close  connection  between  land  tenure  and  military  tenure. 

It  is  easy  to  be  perplexed  by  and  provoked  with  feudalism, 
which  seems  to  be  out  of  keeping  with  the  ancient  civilization 
that  had  preceded  it  and  the  modern  one  which  was  to  follow. 
But  we  can  gain  insight  into  and  some  sympathy  for  the  feudal 
period  if  we  regard  it  as  the  transition  from  the  old  order  to  the 
new,  from  the  "  First  Empire  "  to  the  "  Second."  Although  the 
foundations  of  western  civilization  are  to  be  sought  in  the  ideas 
and  institutions  of  Christianity,  Greece,  and  Rome,  the  modern 
world  was  not  built  directly  upon  the  ancient  order.  Those  forms 
of  culture  and  civilization  could  not  be  assimilated  without  effort 

1  Stubbs,  "  Constitutional  History  of  England,"  Ch,  IX,  in  Robinson,  Read- 
ings in  European  History,  Vol.  I,  p.  187. 


2I4  FEUDAL   CIVILIZATION 

or  the  passage  of  time.  The  barbarians  had  first  to  comprehend 
them  and  then  make  them  their  own  as  best  they  could.  In  the 
interim,  these  raw  citizens  of  Europe  developed  a  civilization  of 
their  own,  and  this  feudalism,  as  we  realize  now,  was  a  means 
of  passing  from  the  old  civilization  to  the  new.  The  complex 
of  ideas  and  institutions  called  feudalism  made  its  own  impression 
upon  the  modern  world  and  in  connection  with  social  institu- 
tions has  affected  the  type  of  civilization  we  call  our  own.  We 
are  modern,  but  are  we  not  still  feudal  ? 

It  is  only  by  giving  due  historical  weight  to  the  feudal  period 
that  we  can  appreciate  the  importance  of  the  Teutonic  element 
in  western  civilization.2  This  contains  a  Roman  element  as  well; 
indeed,  it  is  a  question,  made  difficult  by  the  obscure  origin  of 
feudalism,  whether  there  was  not  a  certain  amount  of  Latin 
civilization  obtaining  in  the  feudal  system  after  the  passing  of 
the  Holy  Roman  Empire.  It  was  not  the  case  of  building  a 
temporary  culture  which  with  the  coming  of  the  Renaissance 
would  introduce  anew  the  ideals  of  the  ancient  world  in  a  pure 
form;  feudalism  was  itself  sufficiently  Roman  to  prepare  the  way 
for  the  famous  revival  of  the  ancient  mode  of  thought  and  life. 
However,  our  civilization  is  more  Germanic  than  Romanic  in 
form.  Hence,  in  order  to  understand  the  present,  it  is  necessary 
to  consider  the  feudal  period  of  transition  as  well  as  the  grand 
system  of  Roman  politics  behind  it.  We  are  what  we  are  today 
because  the  rude  German  invaders  of  Rome  took  what  they 
could  not  understand,  conquered  what  they  could  not  compre- 
hend. If  we  are  to  understand  the  complexities  of  our  present 
existence,  we  must  enter  into  the  confusion  of  the  feudal  period. 
How  is  such  feudalism  to  be  understood  ?  We  may  answer  this 
question  by  saying  it  was  a  system  of  relationships. 

The  twofold  relationship  of  person  and  person,  and  person  to 
property  makes  it  convenient  to  consider  feudalism  in  a  dual 
form  —  the  political  and  the  economic.  The  first  relation  centers 
in  the  relation  of  the  landlords,  or  nobles,  to  one  another  and 
ultimately  to  the  monarch.  The  other  concerns  the  relation  of 
the  lord  of  the  manor  to  the  peasants  who  toiled  on  his  domains, 
the  serfs  or  villeins.  The  latter  is  sometimes  called  the  manorial 

2  Adams,  Civilization  during  the  Middle  Ages,  rev.  ccL,  Chs.  IV,  V. 


FEUDAL  LAW  2I5 

system.   Suppose  we  consider  the  political  side  of  feudalism  in  im- 
mediate connection  with  the  history  of  the  period. 


POLITICAL  FEUDALISM 

After  the  barbarian  invasions  of  Rome,  the  political  State  de- 
clined, was  resuscitated  by  Charlemagne,  and  then  collapsed. 
Indeed,  when  the  last  of  the  puppet  emperors  of  the  Western 
Roman  Empire  was  deposed  in  476,  the  State  as  the  Romans 
knew  it  and  as  we  ourselves  know  it  came  to  an  end.  To  the 
contemporary  mind,  it  seemed  only  that  the  Roman  Empire  had 
reverted  to  the  original  plan  of  a  single  emperor,  with  Constan- 
tinople rather  than  Rome  as  the  center  of  power.  In  the  words 
of  Lord  Bryce,  the  Western  Empire  was  "  reunited  with  ...  the 
Eastern  so  that  from  that  time  there  was  ...  a  single  undivided 
Roman  Empire."  3  Then  the  spectacular  coronation  of  Charle- 
magne in  the  year  800  was  similarly  thought  of  as  a  restoration  of 
the  undivided  Empire  with  Rome  as  its  center  again.  How  could 
it  be  otherwise?  The  collapse  of  the  Empire  was  unthinkable 
in  spite  of  the  evident  facts  in  the  case.  The  Empire  may  have 
died,  yet  the  Empire  was  immortal.  So  great  had  been  the  re- 
pute of  Roman  government,  that  men  could  not  place  it  in  the 
past  and  then  consider  some  new  polity.  The  attempts  of  Char- 
lemagne were  valiant,  but  in  vain.  It  was  impossible  to  reverse 
the  course  of  history;  hence  this  emperor's  endeavor  to  reestablish 
the  Empire  was  destined  to  fail.  Otho  the  Great  (912-973)  made 
an  attempt  to  reestablish  the  realm,  which  did  drag  out  a  sort 
of  formal  existence  until  modern  times,  when  it  was  completely 
closed  in  1806  by  Napoleon. 

FEUDAL  LAW 

The  social  situation  after  the  collapse  of  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire  became  such  as  to  suggest  a  kind  of  pre-social  or  pre- 
political  condition.  It  might  perhaps  be  referred  to  as  an  example 
of  the  "  state  of  nature  "  which,  as  we  shall  see  in  Chapter  XIV, 
the  political  philosophers  of  the  early  modern  period  considered 
8  Holy  Roman  Empire,  pp.  59-60. 


2Ig  FEUDAL  CIVILIZATION 

the  real  beginning  of  society  and  State.  The  decline  of  central- 
ized political  authority  meant  as  well  the  decline  of  universal  law, 
and  with  the  passing  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  came  the  de- 
parture of  the  Roman  ideal  of  law.  From  having  been  a  public 
possession,  law  became  a  kind  of  personal  privilege.  There  was 
what  might  be  called  feudal  law,  such  as  the  codification  of 
Beaumanoir  in  France,  the  Sachsenspiegcl  and  Schwabenspiegel 
in  Germany,  as  well  as  the  Ubri  Feudorum  in  Italy.  But  these 
codifications,  based  on  custom  and  expediency,  afford  only  pathetic 
comparison  with  such  a  fundamental  work  as  the  Code  of  Jus- 
tinian. Can  we  not  say  that  here  in  the  feudal  period,  there 
was  a  state  of  affairs  not  unlike  that  so  laconically  and  yet  so 
graphically  indicated  by  the  Hebrew  writer  in  the  Boo{  of 
]udges?  "  There  was  no  king  in  Israel  and  every  man  did  what 
was  right  in  his  own  eyes." 

It  was  the  Church  which  took  up  the  task  of  curbing  this 
anarchy  and  the  ills  that  it  entailed.  The  Church  was  in  a 
position  to  do  this,  since  it  had  modeled  its  own  organization 
upon  that  of  the  Roman  Empire  before  its  fall.  Its  spiritual 
leaders,  the  bishops,  had  risen  to  positions  of  secular  importance. 
Consequently,  the  spiritual  leader  was  in  a  better  position  than 
the  political  one,  like  Charlemagne,  had  been  to  carry  out  the 
august  traditions  of  the  Pax  Romana.  The  Holy  Catholic  Church 
was  wiser  than  the  Holy  Roman  Empire.  What  was  the  Church's 
equipment  for  this  enterprise?  It  had  something  like  a  monopoly 
of  intelligence  and  virtue,  possessed  unity  and  vitality,  and  was 
inspired  by  unselfish  purposes.  But  should  the  rulers  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  attempt  to  become  as  well  leaders  of  a 
kingdom  which  was  decidedly  earthly? 

In  answering  this  question,  we  must  observe  that  it  was  a 
question  of  ecclesiastical  control  or  no  control  at  all.  True  enough 
is  it  that  spiritual  participation  in  temporal  matters,  and  the 
endeavor  to  render  things  to  both  God  and  Caesar,  involved  de- 
fects and  engendered  ills.  When  the  bishops  were  the  only  func- 
tionaries who  had  genuine  authority,  they  were  wont  to  use 
their  office  or  abuse  it  in  the  capacity  of  making  and  unmaking 
kings.  This  came  to  be  an  intolerable  situation;  it  was  bound 
to  produce  strife  with  the  secular  powers.  This  it  did  ultimately 


THE  TRUCE  OF  GOD  217 

in  the  famous  conflict  between  Pope  Boniface  VIII  and  Philip  the 
Fair  (1268-1314).  Philip,  who  sought  the  suppression  o£  feu- 
dalism and  the  revival  of  Roman  Law,  attempted  to  levy  taxes 
upon  the  clergy,  an  act  which  Boniface  by  the  bull  Clericis  Laicos 
(1296)  forbade,  only  to  have  Philip  respond  by  forbidding  the 
export  of  money  or  valuables.  After  a  provisional  reconciliation, 
the  quarrel  between  Church  and  State  was  resumed  in  1300  when 
Philip  imprisoned  the  papal  legate  and,  finally,  imprisoned  the 
pope  himself  and  elevated  to  the  papal  seat  Clement  V,  one  of 
his  own  men,  as  we  might  style  him.  However,  it  was  the 
Church  and  the  Church  alone  that  was  able  to  preserve  order 
within  the  State. 

THE  TRUCE  OF  GOD 

A  special  and  excellent  illustration  of  the  Church's  activity  in 
maintaining  order  in  the  disjointed  Empire  was  the  institution 
of  the  Truce  of  God.  This  was  devised  to  check  the  private  war- 
fare that  was  all  too  prevalent  in  those  anarchistic  days.  How 
did  such  impromptu  warfare  arise?  We  have  observed  that  land 
tenure  on  the  part  of  the  tenant  meant  military  tenure  on  the 
part  of  the  lower  class,  who  were  supposed  to  be  adepts  with 
both  plow  and  sword,  pruning  hook  and  spear.  These  under- 
lings were  expected  to  work  and  fight  for  their  lords.  The 
mediaeval  army,  if  we  may  so  style  it,  was  organized  and  the 
thing  to  do  was  to  fight.  Fortunately  for  the  men  of  that  time 
the  weapons  were  by  no  means  deadly  nor  was  military  strategy  at 
all  scientific;  yet  such  private,  irrational  warfare  was  a  constant 
menace  to  peace,  a  barrier  to  progress.  It  had  its  glamour  and 
now  affords  material  for  a  romantic  conception  of  human  life, 
but  the  Church  realized  that  it  was  little  short  of  a  pestilence. 

The  first  steps  to  curb  this  nuisance,  as  we  might  call  it,  were 
taken  by  the  Church  in  its  provincial  synods.  The  Church  with 
its  evangelical  idea  of  "  peace  on  earth  among  men  of  good  will " 
was  unable  to  prevent  warfare  entirely,  especially  as  its  subjects 
were  far  from  being  men  of  good  will.  But  the  Church  was  able 
to  establish  extended  holidays  free  from  fighting.  An  example 
of  this  heavenly  truce  is  afforded  us  in  the  order  promulgated  by 


2Ig  FEUDAL  CIVILIZATION 

Reginald,  Archbishop  of  Aries.  The  naivete  of  the  document 
cannot  hide  its  noble  intention.  It  was  to  the  effect  "that  all 
Christians,  friends  and  enemies,  neighbors  and  strangers,  should 
keep  true  and  lasting  peace  one  with  another  from  vespers  on 
Wednesday  to  sunrise  on  Monday,  so  that  during  these  four  days 
and  five  nights,  all  persons  may  have  peace  and,  trusting  to  this 
peace,  may  go  about  their  business  without  fear  of  their  enemies."  4 
Such  a  document,  in  itself  perhaps  trivial,  is  highly  illustrative 
of  the  feudal  period,  if  not  of  the  whole  matter  of  government. 
People  desire  generally  "  to  go  about  their  business  "  and  are 
not  interested  primarily  in  the  quarrels  between  monarchs  or 
States.  In  the  mediaeval  period  when,  at  length,  really  national 
kings  arose  and  laid  claim  to  absolute  power,  their  peoples  were 
ready  to  acquiesce  in  such  pretensions  on  the  part  of  their  sover- 
eigns, since  the  crown  gave  some  assurance  of  stable  government. 
Today  we  are  confronted  by  the  absolute  State  rather  than  the 
absolute  monarch  and  the  enforcement  of  law  by  police  and 
court,  fine  and  imprisonment  and  even  execution.  But  this  is  as 
we  would  have  it,  for  it  is  as  though  we  ourselves  had  learned 
the  bitter  lesson  of  what  can  happen  to  society  when  it  lacks  the 
political  organization  of  a  State.  Some  members  of  the  social 
order  may  desire  to  do  what  is  right  in  their  own  eyes,  but  the 
majority  desire  laws  that  will  permit  them  to  go  about  their  own 
business. 

THE  POWER  OF  THE  POPE 

But  in  the  feudal  period  the  Church  did  not  stop  with  the 
Truce  of  God.  Having  made  a  beginning  in  the  field  of 
secular  power,  it  continued  to  increase  in  sway  until  it  reached 
its  culmination  in  the  pontificate  of  Innocent  III  (1198-1216). 
Now,  Innocent  III  was  a  papal  sovereign  whose  position  and 
power  were  reminiscent  of  a  Roman  emperor.  In  the  first  place, 
as  head  of  the  Church,  the  pope  was  the  supreme  master  of  the 
whole  body  of  ecclesiastics  of  whatever  rank  and  in  whatever 
land.  On  the  other  hand,  this  body  of  ecclesiastics  was  free 
from  the  control  of  the  political  power,  being  answerable  to 
4  Thatcher  and  McNeal,  Source  Book  for  Mediaeval  History,  p,  414. 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  2ig 

ecclesiastical  courts  only  and  to  a, special  body  of  law,  the  Canon 
Law.  The  claim  was  made  also  that  the  entire  ecclesiastical 
body  was  exempt  from  taxation,  an  immunity  which  Church 
property  also  shared.  This  appears  from  the  papal  bull  of  Boni- 
face VIII,  the  Clerids  Laicos  to  which  we  have  already  referred.5 
An  earlier  claim  to  exemption  from  taxation  is  to  be  found  in  a 
letter  from  Innocent  III  to  a  bishop.6  This  was  a  privilege  in- 
deed, and  made  the  clerical  profession  unusually  attractive  and, 
further,  all  that  was  needed  to  prove  that  one  was  a  cleric  was 
the  ability  to  read,  to  read  so  little  as  a  single  line.7  Thus  the 
clergy  instead  of  being  national  in  their  citizenship  were  ec- 
clesiastical; legally  they  were  not  French  or  English  subjects  duly 
subject  to  the  laws  and  taxes  of  the  land,  but  were  responsible 
to  a  kind  of  spiritual  "  Rome."  The  Church  was  thus  a  State 
within  the  State,  imperium  in  imperio. 

CHURCH  AND  STATE 

The  situation,  trying  enough  in  itself  during  a  period  famous 
for  political  irregularities,  was  even  a  more  difficult  one.  State 
and  Church  were  badly  confused  by  the  fact  that  Church  officers 
were  likewise  lay  lords.  They  held  fiefs,  controlled  their  inhabit- 
ants, and  had  their  feudal  rights.  They  held  their  ecclesiastical 
positions  but  were  none  the  less  important  members  of  the  politi- 
cal organization.  Who,  then,  was  their  rightful  sovereign,  pope 
or  king?  This  question  caused  the  confusion  just  referred  to; 
more  than  that,  it  became  the  source  of  a  conflict  between  Em- 
pire and  Church  on  the  subject  of  investiture  —  the  right  to  invest 
the  bishop  with  the  insignia  of  his  office.  It  became  "  confusion 
worse  confounded." 

The  result  of  the  conflict  with  the  Empire  was  a  sweeping 
victory  of  the  Church  over  the  Emperor  Frederick  II.  The  Em- 
pire, which  claimed  to  be  the  successor  of  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire  and  hence  to  include  all  Europe,  then  disappeared.  It 
was  not  the  Church  that  had  destroyed  this  feudal  State;  it  was 

5  lb.,  p.  311. 

6  /£.,  p.  213. 

7  Robinson,  Readings  in  European  History,  Vol.  I,  p.  358. 


220  FEUDAL  CIVILIZATION 

the  power  o£  specific  nationalism,  particularly  that  o£  France. 
This  new  nationalism  was  personified  in  Philip  the  Fair,  to  whom 
we  have  referred  already.  The  Church  rejoiced  in  an  old  power, 
the  State  in  a  new  one.  Upon  the  basis  of  its  authority,  the 
Church  put  forth  the  claim  that  all  power  belonged  to  the  pope 
and  that  the  prince,  or  political  ruler,  derived  his  authority  by 
delegation  from  the  pope.  Moreover,  it  was  within  the  power  of 
the  pope  to  exercise  general  superintendence  over  a  State  and 
both  excommunicate  and  dethrone  its  ruler.  The  summit  of  the 
papal  claim  to  secular  power  was  reached  when  Boniface  VIII 
issued  the  bull,  Unam  Sanctam  (1300).  It  reads  as  follows: 

"  Both  the  spiritual  and  material  swords,  therefore,  are  in  the 
power  of  the  Church,  the  latter  indeed  to  be  used  for  the  Church, 
the  former  by  the  Church,  the  one  by  the  priest,  the  other  by  the 
hand  of  kings  and  soldiers,  and  by  the  will  and  sufferance  of  the 
priest.  It  is  fitting,  moreover,  that  one  sword  should  be  under 
the  other  and  the  temporal  authority  subject  to  the  spiritual 
power.  Hence,  the  truth  bearing  witness,  it  is  for  the  spiritual 
power  to  establish  the  earthly  power  and  judge  it  if  it  be  not 
good.  Therefore,  if  the  earthly  power  shall  err,  it  shall  be  judged 
by  the  higher,  but  i£  the  supreme  power  err,  it  can  be  judged  by 
God  alone.  We,  moreover,  proclaim,  declare,  and  pronounce  that 
it  is  altogether  necessary  to  salvation  for  every  human  being  to 
be  subject  to  the  Roman  pontiff."  8 

This  was  the  papal  theory  of  Boniface,  but  it  was  Innocent  III 
who  most  nearly  put  the  theory  into  practice.  He  exercised 
governmental  control  of  the  papal  possessions  in  Italy  and  simi- 
lar control  over  Sicily.  Important  lay  lords  including  John  of 
England  were  his  vassals.  Sverre,  king  of  Norway,  became  in- 
volved in  a  conflict  with  the  Church,  whereupon  his  followers 
were  excommunicated  and  the  king  of  Denmark  ordered  to  take 
up  arms  against  him.  Besides  appointing  and  deposing  kings, 
we  find  Innocent  actively  supporting  them.  He  wrote  to  his 
"beloved  sons,"  the  magnates  and  barons  of  England,  relative 
to  the  protests  that  produced  Magna  Carta  saying,  "  We  hereby 

8  Robinson,  Readings  in  European  History,  Vol.  I,  pp.  347-348. 


THE  SECULAR  POWER  OF  THE  CHURCH    22I 

condemn  your  conduct  in  these  matters,"  and  forbade  further 
quarrels  with  John  on  threat  of  excommunication.9  In  what 
today  we  should  call  the  field  of  international  relations,  we  find 
him  frequently  intervening  in  conflicts.,  claiming  the  right  to 
arbitrate,  seeking  to  promote  peace  and  confirming  agreements 
between  rulers,  and  formally  registering  them;  a  procedure  some- 
what akin  to  that  of  the  present  League  of  Nations.  Innocent 
further  declared  what  constituted  heresy,  and  commanded  the 
monarchs  and  lay  lords  to  crush  it  out.  This  was  done  in 
southern  France  in  the  case  of  the  so-called  Albigensians.10 


THE  SECULAR  POWER  OF  THE  CHURCH 

But  this  secular  supremacy  rested  on  insecure  foundations,  as 
was  to  be  clearly  demonstrated.  Events  proved  all  too  plainly 
that  when  an  ecclesiastical  organization  "goes  in  for  politics," 
it  is  itself  the  loser  despite  any  initial  appearance  of  victory. 
Animosities  which  are  fatal  to  church  harmony  are  necessarily 
created  and  in  this  case  of  Church  and  State  it  was  shown  that 
it  was  difficult  to  keep  sacred  and  secular  interests  apart.  Then, 
as  is  usually  the  case,  political  force  will  predominate  over  re- 
ligious influence  and  tend  to  change  the  Church  into  a  political 
machine  alien  in  its  operations  to  the  religious  needs  of  its  adher- 
ents. But  it  is  difficult  for  mankind  to  accept  the  results  of  such 
experiments  as  were  tried  in  the  days  of  feudalism.  It  required 
the  faith  and  fortitude  of  Roger  Williams  and  the  statesmanship 
of  Thomas  Jefferson  to  teach  America  the  wisdom  of  keeping 
State  and  Church  apart,  and  even  today  there  is  a  marked  tend- 
ency on  the  part  of  Protestantism  to  thrust  itself  into  politics. 
However,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  there  is  need  of  the  religious 
spirit  in  international  affairs,  and  here  it  must  be  observed  that 
the  western  world  has  still  to  find  a  substitute  for  the  principle 
of  papal  control  that  Innocent  sought  to  maintain. 

Feudalism  must  not  be  understood  in  an  ecclesiastical  manner 
as  the  secular  power  of  the  Church.  This  extension  of  the  ec- 

0  Thatcher  and  McNeal,  Source  Book,  for  Mediaeval  History,  pp.  217,  219. 
10  R.  W.  and  A.  J.  Carlylc,  History  of  Mediaeval  Political  Theory  in  the  West, 
Vol.  V,  Part  II,  Ch.  I, 


222  FEUDAL  CIVILIZATION 

clesiastical  function  was  due  to  the  historical  fact  that  the  public 
power  of  the  State  was  so  weak  that  it  became  necessary  for  a 
theological  force  to  operate  in  a  political  manner,  as  it  did  in  the 
days  of  the  feudal  system.  The  origin  of  feudalism  is  obscured 
by  the  lack  of  temporary  records;  was  it  originally  of  a  Latin  or 
a  later  German  source?  The  use  of  the  terms  benefice  and 
•precarium  would  indicate  something  Romanic  in  what  turned 
out  to  be  characteristically  Germanic.  But,  at  all  events,  we  can 
keep  the  feudal  idea  in  mind  by  reference  to  the  further  notion 
of  land  and  land  tenure.  The  earth  was  the  source  of  income  and 
form  of  wealth  in  the  early  Middle  Ages;  such  realty  in  large 
quantities  was  the  property  of  the  kings  and  great  lords.  The 
excess  of  such  holdings  was  bound  to  produce  a  surplus  of  real 
property  or  far  more  land  than  its  owners  could  cultivate.  What 
were  the  royal  owners  to  do  with  their  vast  holdings?  They 
could  only  grant  it  to  retainers  who  would  cultivate  it  for  them 
and  further  contribute  military  service  by  way  of  rent.  The 
grantor  of  the  land  retained  the  title,  so  to  speak,  while  the 
vassal-tenant  had  the  use  of  it.  This  was  the  benefice;  generally 
it  became  hereditary  on  payment  of  a  "  fine  "  when  the  vassal 
died,  whereupon  his  eldest  son  entered  into  his  father's  pos- 
sessions. 

THE  ESSENCE  OF  FEUDALISM 

In  the  feudal  system,  the  precarium  was  a  form  of  the  benefice. 
The  smaller  free-holder,  himself  unable  to  Secure  protection  from 
the  political  power,  sought  such  protection  elsewhere,  as  from 
a  neighboring  stronger  lord  or  perhaps  from  a  near-by  monastery. 
In  order  to  do  this,  the  small  free-holder  would  surrender  his 
holdings  and  become  the  "  man  "  of  the  lord  in  return  for  the 
latter's  protection.  Some  forms  of  the  precarium  provided  that 
upon  the  death  of  the  vassal  the  property  would  go  to  the  superior, 
but  the  general  practice  was  for  the  holdings  to  be  inherited  after 
due  payment  had  been  made  by  the  heirs.  A  typical  precarial 
will  illustrates  the  nature  of  the  transaction: 

"I  (name)  and  my  wife  (name),  in  the  name  of  the  Lord, 
give  by  this  letter  of  gift  and  transfer  from  our  ownership  to 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  FEUDALISM  223 

the  ownership  and  authority  of  the  monastery  of  (name)  over 
which  the  venerable  abbot  (name)  presides  .  .  .  the  following 
villas  (names),  situate  in  the  county  of  (name)  with  all  the 
lands,  houses,  buildings,  tenants,  slaves,  vineyards,  woods,  fields, 
pastures,  meadows,  streams,  and  all  other  belongings  and  de- 
pendencies ...  in  order  that  under  the  protection  of  Christ  they 
may  be  used  for  the  support  and  maintenance  of  the  monks  who 
dwell  in  the  aforesaid  monasteries.  We  do  this  on  the  condition 
that  as  long  as  either  of  us  shall  live  we  may  possess  the  afore- 
said villas,  without  prejudice  to  the  ownership  of  the  monastery 
and  without  diminution  of  the  value  of  them.  .  .  .  After  the 
death  of  both  of  us  the  aforesaid  villas  with  any  additions  or 
improvements  which  may  have  been  made  shall  return  im- 
mediately to  the  possession  of  said  monastery  and  the  said  abbot 
and  his  successors  without  undertaking  any  judicial  process  or 
obtaining  the  consent  of  the  heir." 1X 

Another  element  which  helped  to  constitute  the  feudal  system 
was  that  of  homage,  a  custom  whereby  the  holder  of  a  grant  of 
land  was  bound  to  the  grantor  by  special  bonds  of  allegiance. 
The  nature  of  the  process  is  best  indicated  by  a  typical  form  of 
ceremony: 

"  That  man  should  put  his  hands  together  as  a  sign  of  humility, 
and  place  them  between  the  two  hands  of  his  lord  as  a  token  that 
he  vows  everything  to  him  and  promises  faith  to  him;  and  the 
lord  should  receive  him  and  promise  to  keep  faith  with  him. 
Then  the  man  should  say,  £  Sir,  I  enter  your  homage  and  faith 
and  become  your  man  by  mouth  and  hands,  and  I  swear  and 
promise  to  keep  faith  with  you  against  all  others  and  to  guard 
your  rights  with  all  my  strength/  " 12 

Evidently  this  was  a  process  which  in  the  course  of  time  would 
result  only  in  the  substitution  of  a  special  personal  relation  be- 
tween lord  and  vassal  for  the  attachment  of  an  individual  to  his 
country,  as  also  the  substitution  of  private  protection  which  the 
family  should  have  furnished. 

11  Thatcher  and  McNeal,  Source  Book,  jor  Mediaeval  History,  pp.  345-346. 

12  ib.t  p.  363. 


224  FEUDAL  CIVILIZATION 

This  factor  of  feudalism,  the  element  of  loyalty  and  devotion, 
was  one  of  its  chief  characteristics.  "  The  feudal  relation  was 
not  one  of  mere  dependence  or  of  mere  advantage,  but  one  of 
faith  and  loyal  service."13  This  feeling  of  a  special  bond  be- 
tween vassal  and  lord  was  characteristic  of  the  feudal  era,  but 
not  to  that  period  of  history  alone.  In  a  transmuted  form  it 
descended  to  modern  times,  and  when  an  absolute  monarch 
assumed  the  divine  right  of  kings,  he  became  an  object  of  rever- 
ence and  inspired  an  unusual  sense  of  allegiance.  So  strong  had 
this  become  in  the  days  of  Charles  I  of  England  that  some  of 
his  subjects  actually  died  of  shock  when  that  monarch  was  exe- 
cuted. Even  today  the  same  sense  of  allegiance  operates  although 
in  the  impersonal  manner  of  nationalism  or  patriotism,  devotion 
to  one's  country  and  love  for  its 


LORD  AND  VASSAL 

In  the  feudal  period,  the  relation  between  lord  and  vassal  was 
established  ultimately  on  the  basis  of  rent.  The  most  important 
feature  of  this  rent  was  military  service  which  was  normally  for 
forty  days  with  a  fixed  number  of  armed  retainers.  On  certain 
occasions,  such  as  the  marriage  of  the  lord's  oldest  daughter,  the 
knighting  of  the  lord's  oldest  son,  and  the  captivity  of  the  lord, 
aids  or  money  payments  were  made  by  the  vassal.  The  lord  had 
certain  rights  over  his  vassals,  such  as  wardship,  the  right  o£ 
guardianship  of  minor  heirs,  and  the  management  and  use  of 
fiefs  during  the  years  of  their  minority.  There  was  also  the  right 
to  choose  or  be  consulted  in  the  choice  of  a  husband  for  the 
female  holders  of  a  fief.  "  Relief  "  was  the  lord's  right  to  exact 
a  certain  payment  from  the  heir  when  he  succeeded  to  a  fief; 
"  escheat "  was  the  right  to  take  back  a  fief  into  his  own  posses- 
sion on  the  failure  of  heirs. 

The  essence  of  the  feudal  system  was  plainly  that  of  service, 
or  tilling  the  land  and  fighting.  Only  those  whose  service  was 
of  the  military  sort  were  regarded  as  of  noble  character  and  were 
set  aside  sharply  from  the  bulk  of  the  community.  The  serfs 

i*  R.  W.  and  A.  J.  Carlyle,  History  of  Mediaeval  Political  Theory  in  the  West, 
Vol.  Ill,  p,  25,  and  Part  I,  Ch.  i,  passim. 


FEUDAL  CASTLE  ON  THE  MOSELLE  RIVER 


FEUDAL  WARFARE 

Two  portions  o£  the  Bayeux  tapestry,  showing  the  Battle  of 
Hastings. 

^facing  page  214} 


LORD  AND   VASSAL  225 

who  were  tied  down  to  the  soil  they  cultivated  owed  their  servile 
duties.  In  the  case  of  feudal  military  service,  there  came  into 
being  a  warrior  class  made  up  of  nobles  whose  sole  excuse  for 
existence  was  that  of  fighting.  Side  by  side  with  the  ecclesiastical 
"estate"  they  came  to  be  recognized  as  a  specially  privileged 
"  order  "  within  the  State.  Ultimately  a  third  estate  consisting 
largely  of  rich  merchants  and  master  craftsmen  arose  in  the  form 
of  the  bourgeoisie.  These  were  literally  the  city-dwellers  or  typi- 
cal men  of  the  present  day.  Much  of  modern  history  has  been 
made  by  their  attempts  to  attain  political  power.  In  the  feudal 
period,  political  power  as  represented  by  the  king  had  practically 
disappeared.  The  king  was  more  than  anything  else  a  lord.  The 
local  officers  of  the  realm  chose  to  regard  their  administrative 
domains  as  so  many  fiefs  and  their  relation  to  their  monarch 
pretty  much  like  that  of  vassal  to  his  overlord.  Their  service  in 
the  king's  army,  their  attendance  on  the  royal  court,  and  their 
service  generally  were  feudal,  not  political.  The  State  was  thus 
feudalized  and  its  political  power  threatened. 

The  institution  of  immunity  put  the  finishing  touch  to  what 
centralized  political  power  still  obtained.  By  means  of  such  im- 
munity, the  holder  of  a  fief,  abbot,  or  monastery  was  given  com- 
plete control  over  his  holdings.  That  is  to  say,  the  royal 
taxgatherers,  judges,  and  administrators  could  not  pass  over 
the  boundaries  of  the  fief  and  exercise  governmental  power.  The 
result  of  this  localization  of  authority  was  that  the  holder  of 
the  fief  came  to  be  practically  sovereign  over  it  and  possessed,  as 
the  phrase  had  it,  the  high  justice,  the  middle,  and  the  low.  The 
lord  had  his  own  courts,  collected  from  his  tenants  all  dues  they 
were  required  to  pay,  controlled  their  military  service,  and  some- 
times went  so  far  as  to  coin  his  own  money.  The  following  ex- 
ample of  immunity  will  prove  illustrative : 

"  In  the  name  of  our  Lord  and  Savior  Jesus  Christ,  Ludwig, 
by  divine  providence  emperor,  Augustus.  Be  it  known  to  all 
our  subjects,  present  and  future,  that  our  faithful  subject,  John, 
has  come  to  us  and  commended  himself  to  us,  and  has  besought 
us  to  confirm  to  him  the  possession  of  lands  .  .  .  which  he  and 
his  sons  and  their  men  have  shared  and  occupied.  He  has  shown 

S.T. — 1 6 


226  FEUDAL  CIVILIZATION 

us  the  charter  which  he  received  from  our  father  Karl  the  Great. 
We  have  consented  to  do  this  and  have  done  even  more;  we  have 
given  him  certain  villas  .  .  .  granting  that  he  and  his  sons  and 
posterity  may  hold  them  in  peace  and  security.  No  count,  vicari- 
ous, or  their  subordinates,  or  any  other  public  official  shall  pre- 
sume to  judge  or  constrain  any  persons  living  on  these  lands  but 
John  and  his  sons  and  their  posterity  shall  judge  and  constrain 
them."14 

FEUDAL  "  ANARCHY  " 

Liberty  thus  came  to  be  thought  of  as  freedom  from  all  political 
control,  a  conception  further  emphasized  by  the  fact  that  all 
ecclesiastics  were  likewise  subject  to  their  own  law  and  courts 
with  ultimate  appeal  to  Rome  and  not  to  the  law  of  the  land. 
When  cities  began  to  grow  they,  too,  demanded  and  frequently 
obtained,  whether  by  force  or  purchase,  charters  which  secured 
for  themselves  more  or  less  exclusive  control  of  their  own  affairs. 
As  a  result  of  this  situation,  the  right  to  rule  came  to  be  thought 
of  as  an  incident,  a  dependency  on  land  tenure.  The  king's 
power  was  not  different  from  that  of  another  lord's.  He  ruled  in 
his  own  domains  as  their  landlord,  but  was  dependent  on  the 
feudal  services  of  his  vassals  for  taxes,  military  service,  and  court. 
This  political  phase  of  feudalism  was  far  from  being  a  passing 
one.  Today  the  State  is  the  successor  to  the  king,  just  as  in  his 
day  the  king  was  successor  to  the  feudal  lord.  Hence  the  State 
is  frequently  regarded  as  the  supreme  landlord  with  its  power  to 
condemn  and  take  land  as  need  may  require.  This  power  of  the 
State  is  known  as  the  "right  of  eminent  domain."  And  the 
modern  State  maintains  further,  in  quite  a  mediaeval  manner, 
that  it  is  an  immunity  in  the  sense  that  it  denies  the  right  of  any 
other  power  or  law  to  exercise  jurisdiction  or  control  over  its 
"  tenants." 

The  system  of  fiefs  was  unsatisfactory  especially  from  the 

standpoint  of  internal  order.   The  scheme  of  things  might  present 

a  neat  picture  of  vassals  and  lords,  tenants-in-chief  of  the  king, 

and  the  monarch  himself;  but  the  picture  did  not  reveal  the 

14  Thatcher  and  McNeal,  Source  Book  for  Mediaeval  History,  p.  353. 


FEUDAL  ECONOMICS  227 

actual  conditions  of  uncertainty  and  confusion,  the  lack  of  control 
of  vassals  by  their  lords  or  of  the  tenants-in-chief  by  the  king. 
Can  we  call  such  a  social  situation  one  of  anarchy?  Hardly  that, 
although  it  was  distinctly  lacking  in  order.  Dare  we  go  so  far 
as  to  suggest  their  feudal  warfare  was  akin  to  our  gangster  war- 
fare, their  feuds  like  ours?  Both  forms  of  violence  were  a  hin- 
drance to  labor  and  trade,  both  merchant  and  trader  were  so 
opposed  to  them  as  to  seek  peace  at  the  price  of  absolute  mon- 
archy. In  a  manner  somewhat  analogous,  we  are  willing  to 
surrender  a  certain  amount  of  individual  liberty  to  various  sorts 
of  corporations  to  which  we  look  for  peace  and  progress.  Our 
modern  social  philosophy  for  all  its  modernness  seems  to  have 
derived  some  of  its  principles,  some  of  its  working  programs  from 
what  seems  so  alien  to  our  system  as  the  feudal  one.  At  the 
present  time,  we  are  in  a  condition  not  wholly  unlike  the  dis- 
ordered one  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  are  casting  about  for  a  prin- 
ciple on  which  a  more  secure  form  of  economic  existence  and 
social  welfare  can  be  based. 

FEUDAL  ECONOMICS 

But  feudalism  was  more  than  a  political  arrangement;  order 
it  can  hardly  be  called.  It  was  more  of  an  economic  scheme  based 
on  the  manorial  system.  Wealth  was  in  the  form  of  land  or 
agricultural  property  cultivated  by  peasant-serfs.  These  were  al- 
most literally  attached  to  the  soil  in  that  they  passed  with  the 
manor  when  it  changed  hands,  although  they  could  not  be  treated 
as  slaves  or  sold  at  the  wish  of  the  lord.  As  a  result  of  the  ma- 
norial process,  the  territory  of  western  Europe  was  parceled  out 
into  large  holdings,  so  large  as  to  produce  a  surplus.  It  was  this 
surplus  that  was  granted  out  as  fiefs  to  other  lords,  the  remainder 
being  kept  as  practically  the  sole  source  of  income  for  the  eco- 
nomically nonproductive  lord  of  the  manor. 

In  general,  the  manor  was  divided  into  two  parts:  demesne 
land,  which  was  cultivated  directly  by  the  lord's  serfs  and  the 
land-services  of  his  other  tenants;  and  the  land  cultivated  directly 
by  the  serfs  on  burdensome  terms  of  rent,  which  the  serfs  paid 
in  kind.  These  serf-cultivators  lived  in  small,  unprotected  vil- 


228  FEUDAL   CIVILIZATION 

lages  outside  the  castle  walls.  The  agricultural  land  was  divided 
into  three  great  fields,  one  of  which  lay  fallow  each  year,  divided 
into  long  strips  allocated  to  individual  serfs  and  generally  in- 
herited by  the  eldest  son  on  the  payment  of  the  so-called  "  fine." 
The  terms  on  which  the  land  was  held  were  various,  complex, 
and  frequently  of  such  a  nature  as  to  engender  despair  in  the 
heart  of  the  serf-cultivator.  First  of  all  there  were  payments  that 
must  be  made  in  kind  in  the  form  of  produce.  Then  came  serv- 
ices of  various  sorts  on  the  lord's  part  of  the  manor.  Frequently 
the  lord  had  a  mill  where  the  serf  must  grind  his  grain,  or  a 
wine-press  where  he  must  press  his  grapes.  Special  payments 
in  eggs  and  poultry,  for  example,  were  payable  at  feast  times. 
In  general,  as  it  happened,  the  serf  had  little  left  of  the  prod- 
uce; only  a  bare  subsistence  after  payments  to  his  lord  had  been 
made. 

An  illustrative  description  of  the  dues  and  services  owed  by 
a  man  holding  a  house  and  thirty  acres  of  land  will  serve  to  in- 
dicate the  nature  of  the  system.  These  payments  and  services 
may  be  itemized  as  follows:  two  shillings  yearly,  a  cock  and  two 
hens  at  Christmas,  two  days  harrowing  with  his  own  horse  and 
one  man,  two  days  of  hauling  manure  with  his  own  cart  and 
oxen,  two  days  of  mowing  the  lord's  meadow  at  the  rate  of  one 
acre  a  day,  hauling  beans  or  oats  two  days  in  the  fall,  two  days 
of  wood  hauling,  two  days  of  cutting  and  hauling  heath,  and  two 
trips  to  the  neighboring  town  with  grain.  These  constituted  the 
rent  the  serf  was  required  to  pay.  In  addition  to  these  privileges, 
his  lord  had  certain  rights  over  him,  as  in  settling  his  disputes  and 
collectihg  fines  from  him.  The  lord  himself  lived  on  the  agricul- 
tural produce  of  his  own  domain  and  his  rents.  Naturally,  the 
lord  had  to  consume  his  produce  on  the  spot  and  in  case  the 
lord  had  more  than  one  manor  he  would  journey  from 
manor  to  manor  to  consume  his  produce  and  rents.  As  a  re- 
sult of  this  situation,  no  value  was  attached  to  nonconsumable 
surplus  coming  from  surplus  land;  hence  this  excess  of  real  estate 
was  granted  to  other  lords  in  the  form  of  fiefs.15  What  was  the 
effect  of  such  a  system  on  the  life  of  the  lord  who  was  to  the 
manor  born? 

15  Guizot,  History  of  Civilization,  Vol.  IV,  Lecture  VIL 


FEUDAL  ETHICS  229 

FEUDAL  ETHICS 

The  life  of  the  typical  lord  was  bound  to  be  vacant  and  without 
purpose.  Idle,  ignorant,  and  gross,  the  lord  found  little  to  ab- 
sorb his  time  save  in  war  and  the  chase;  it  was  thus  that  private 
warfare  was  a  boon  to  a  man  burdened  with  ennui.  But  out  of 
the  failure  of  such  a  life  to  produce  a  proper  outlet  for  energy 
there  was  evolved  one  of  the  most  interesting  of  social  develop- 
ments—  the  system  of  chivalry.  In  certain  ways,  chivalry  was 
akin  to  our  system  of  lodges  and  fraternities  with  their  initiations, 
regalia,  oaths,  and  ritualistic  practices.  Like  these  modern  organi- 
zations, chivalry  was  based  on  a  sense  of  social  superiority  and 
polite  prestige  enjoyed  by  the  members  of  the  gentry  who  were 
not  knights.  But  above  all  it  gave  the  lords  of  manors  something 
to  do  in  an  idle  life,  as  it  loaned  color  to  what  was  really  a  drab 
existence.  Chivalry  has  left  a  permanent  and  pleasing  impression 
on  the  world  in  the  form  of  the  man  who,  no  longer  a  knight, 
has  the  knightly  characteristic  of  the  modern  "  gentleman." 

The  ethics,  or  morale,  of  chivalry  might  be  summed  up  in  the 
supreme  word  "  honor."  The  expression  of  this  often  assumed  a 
physical  form  involving  the  additional  virtue  of  courage,  as  also 
physical  prowess.  But  there  were  more  refined  features  of  chiv- 
alry in  the  form  of  truthfulness  that  made  a  man's  word  as  good 
as  his  bond.  The  chivalrous  attitude  produced  punctilious  polite- 
ness peculiar  to  a  highly  developed  and  artificial  social  code, 
and  involved  high  esteem  for  women  and  a  readiness  to  protect 
the  weak  and  defenseless.  The  generosity  of  the  knight  bordered 
on  wastefulness  and  was  not  wanting  in  a  desire  for  display.  It 
is  readily  realized  that  such  chivalry  would  tend  to  stress  certain 
virtues  and  refrain  from  emphasizing  equally  important  duties, 
but  the  civilizing  force  of  such  a  spiritual  system  cannot  be 
denied,  for  chivalry  civilized  the  coarse  and  brutal  Germanic 
chiefs  who  in  their  way  were  to  be  the  creators  of  western 
civilization. 

The  feudal  system  as  a  whole  was,  however,  a  class-system  in 
which  the  lord  of  the  manor  was  supreme.  The  condition  of  the 
peasant  was  one  of  undiluted  and  almost  hopeless  misery.  Little 
or  no  provision  was  made  for  the  general  welfare;  famine  and 


230  FEUDAL  CIVILIZATION 

pestilence  were  all  too  common.  During  the  seventy  years  be- 
tween 970  and  1040,  France  had  forty-eight  years  of  famine  or 
epidemic.  Burned  huts  and  harvests,  pillage,  violence,  and  rapine 
were  of  frequent  occurrence,  and  cannibalism  was  sometimes 
practiced.  Our  commercialism  and  industrialism  may  have  much 
to  answer  for  in  the  way  of  oppression  and  misery,  but  these  mean 
more  enrichment  of  the  masses  of  mankind  than  feudalism  ever 
knew.  An  industrial  civilization  like  ours  is  not  without  its  ills, 
but  a  purely  agricultural  system  built  upon  class  cleavage,  privi- 
lege, and  force  is  an  unthinkable  alternative. 

FIEF  AND  TOWN 

Such  a  system  as  that  of  feudalism  could  not  last  because  it  was 
limited  by  the  narrow  principle  of  immediate  consumption,  since 
the  produce  of  the  land  could  be  utilized  in  no  other  way.  It 
began  to  stand  out  in  painful  contrast  to  a  civilization  based  on 
industry  and  commerce,  trade  and  profit-making.  Feudalism 
was  based  on  the  agricultural  fief,  commercialism  on  the  indus- 
trial town.  As  the  Middle  Ages  progressed,  the  town,  with  its 
site  upon  some  old  Roman  town,  around  a  castle  or  near  a  mon- 
astery, grew  in  proportion  to  its  defensibility  and  its  opportunity 
for  trade.  In  both  a  militaristic  and  an  industrial  sense,  the  town 
was  in  a  strategic  position.  It  built  a  wall  and  sought  a  charter. 
By  right  of  purchase,  by  negotiations,  or  even  by  force  the  town 
secured  its  rights  of  self-government  and  guarded  its  precious 
liberties.  This  resulted  in  a  commune. 

The  essential  feature  whereby  the  town  was  made  into  a  com- 
mune was  that  of  feudal  immunity.  The  jurisdiction  of  all  other 
and  alien  political  officers  stopped  at  the  walls  of  the  city.  This 
made  the  communes  so  many  local  states  on  a  small  scale,  enjoying 
isolated  existence.  Ultimately,  when  the  territorial  monarch  was 
more  and  more  fully  established  in  the  supremacy  of  his  realm, 
the  little  communes  came  into  conflict  with  the  superior  power. 
There  could  be  but  one  issue  to  such  a  conflict  and  at  length  the 
communes  were  destroyed.  But  the  immediate  effect  of  the  town- 
movement  was  to  weaken  the  local  nobility  on  whose  territory 
the  town  had  grown  up.  Thus,  when  the  communes  were  de- 


AGRICULTURE  AND  COMMERCE  231 

stroyed  or  abandoned,  and  the  inhabitants  had  grown  weary  o£ 
the  internal  oligarchy  that  had  destroyed  the  feudal  oppressor,  the 
appeal  was  to  the  king.  It  is  significant  to  observe  at  this  point 
that,  in  France,  the  town-movement  enlisted  the  support  of  the 
monarch,  who  wished  to  weaken  the  nobility  and  the  feudal  sys- 
tem in  which  it  had  grown  up.  The  town  was  of  importance  in 
another  particular  —  it  became  a  haven  of  refuge  for  serfs  escap- 
ingWfrom  the  bondage  of  the  feudal  manor.  A  common  provision 
of  a  charter  was  that  any  serf  who  lived  in  a  town  for  a  year  and 
a  day  without  demand  from  his  lord  for  his  surrender  should 
be  free.  Thus  it  is  important  to  observe  that  Frederick  II  should 
have  felt  constrained  to  promise  the  German  princes  that,  as  he 
said,  "the  serfs  of  princes,  nobles,  ministerials,  and  churches 
shall  not  be  admitted  to  our  cities." 

AGRICULTURE  AND  COMMERCE 

As  the  cities  began  to  surround  feudalism,  the  institution  of 
commerce  invaded  its  precincts.  The  immediate  effect  of  com- 
merce was  to  increase  currency  and  capital;  the  resulting  money 
economy  was  fatal  to  feudalism.  The  very  root  of  the  feudal 
system,  as  we  have  seen,  was  payment  in  kind.  The  feudal  lords 
themselves  saw  the  advantage  of  payments  in  money  rather 
than  in  produce  or  service,  but  the  spread  of  money  from  the 
towns  among  agricultural  laborers  was  bound  to  produce  a 
more  fluid  labor  market.  In  much  the  same  manner,  the  de- 
mand for  labor  in  the  east  in  our  time  produced  a  general 
exodus  of  Negroes  from  the  south  where  they  had  previously 
lived  the  life  of  "  crop-sharers  "  on  the  lands  of  the  southern 
landlords.  Further,  the  increase  of  trade  and  the  growth  of 
capital  placed  a  premium  on  social  order,  or  the  business  of 
going  about  one's  business.  The  robber  baron  on  his  steed 
was  not  consistent  with  the  honest  merchant  on  his  mule; 
one  lived  by  pillage,  the  other  by  peaceful  bargaining.  The 
baron  lived  in  his  inaccessible  castle  from  which  he  could  make 
sporadic  forays,  while  the  merchant  required  open  roads,  pro- 
tected travel,  and  a  peaceable  fair  where  he  could  buy  and 
sell.  In  short,  one  type  of  being  required  social  confusion,  the 


232  FEUDAL   CIVILIZATION 

other  social  order.16  In  the  end,  it  was  the  somber  merchant 
on  his  mule  who  won  in  the  tilt  with  the  gay  knight  on 
horseback. 

FEUDALISM  AND  THE  CRUSADES 

Finally,  it  was  the  most  spectacular  movement  of  the  Middle 
Ages  that  turned  the  tide  against  the  most  characteristic  and 
organized  commerce.  This  was  the  crusades.  With  all  their 
worldliness,  the  men  of  the  Middle  Ages  had  not  forgotten 
the  problem  of  human  salvation,  and  the  solution  of  this  came 
to  mean  the  redemption  of  the  Holy  City  from  the  hands  of 
the  Turks.  The  same  spiritual  or  emotional  force  that  sent 
men  into  monasteries  and  made  the  relics  of  saints  matters  of 
unusual  importance  acted  anew  to  set  in  motion  thousands  of 
crusaders  led  on  by  such  royal  commanders  as  Frederick  Bar- 
barossa,  Richard  the  Lion-Hearted,  St.  Louis,  and  others.  The 
feudal  noble  who  knew  no  trade-  but  that  of  fighting  found  in 
the  crusades  an  opportunity  to  exercise  his  martial  gifts.  He 
was  glad  to  escape  the  narrow  confines  of  life  in  the  castle 
for  a  wandering  life  of  adventure  and  combat,  as  also  with 
the  possibility  of  material  gain.  Then,  younger  sons  who  did 
not  succeed  to  their  father's  fiefs  were  only  too  eager  to  find  a 
way  of  elevating  themselves  without  becoming  ecclesiastics.  The 
crusades  were  most  opportune. 

The  immediate  result  of  the  crusades  —  the  establishment  of  a 
short-lived  feudal  kingdom  in  the  Near  East  — was  of  no  perma- 
nent significance.  But  solid  results  were  not  lacking.  The  nar- 
row isolation  of  feudal  life  was  broken  down  and  intercommuni- 
cation between  the  nations  set  up.  The  progress  of  learning  was 
advanced  by  contact  with  Saracen  civilization,  which  in  many 
respects  was  superior  to  the  Christian.  There  was  none  the  less 
a  tremendous  influence  upon  commerce.  New  wants  were  created 
as  the  Europeans  became  acquainted  with  new  commodities  and 
new  forms  of  food.  Many  of  the  old  feudal  families  were  wiped 
out  by  warfare,  sickness,  and  other  causes,  and  their  lands  passed 
into  the  hands  of  the  rich  bourgeoisie.  Even  when  this  did  not 

16  Adajns,  Mediaeval  Civilization,  Ch-  Xlt. 


FEUDALISM  AND  THE  CRUSADES  233 

happen,  the  lord  of  the  manor  frequently  ceded  to  serfs  or  towns 
the  privileges  they  could  not  recover  even  when  they  did  not  go 
so  far  as  to  pledge  the  fiefs  themselves.  In  short,  by  participating 
in  the  crusades,  the  old  feudal  system  committed  suicide.  By  the 
time  the  crusades  were  over,  the  old  order  of  things  was  dying 
and  the  modern  State,  if  not  the  modern  world  was  beginning 
to  live. 


CHAPTER  X 
SCHOLASTIC  CULTURE 


THE  NATURE  OF  SCHOLASTICISM 

THE  VERY  MENTION  OF  THE  TERM  "  SCHOLASTICISM  "  IS  LIKELY 
to  arouse  repugnance  in  our  minds;  we  do  not  care  to 
"  look  into  the  hole  of  the  pit  whence  we  were  digged." 
To  speak  of  a  thing  as  "scholastic"  is  to  condemn  it;  call  it 
"  scientific  "  and  it  is  automatically  proved.  It  was  scholastic  to 
consider  how  many  angels  could  dance  on  the  point  of  a  needle, 
but  it  is  scientific  to  compute  how  many  germs  could  be  placed 
on  the  head  of  a  pin.  Scholasticism,  however,  is  more  of  a  mental 
state  than  merely  a  historical  period;  it  arises  when  the  thinker 
is  more  intent  upon  form  than  content  and  believes,  further,  that 
most  effective  thinking  can  be  accomplished  by  symbols.  At  the 
present  time,  there  is  a  species  of  Scholasticism  in  researches  of 
various  sorts,  in  statistics,  in  the  pursuit  of  pedagogical  methods, 
and  in  the  analysis  of  scientific  method  in  distinction  from  scien- 
tific investigation.  The  thought  of  the  XlXth  and  XXth  cen- 
turies is  quite  different  from  that  of  the  Xllth  and  Xlllth.  Facts 
have  taken  the  place  of  principles  ;  investigations  have  supplanted 
arguments.  Yet  the  passage  of  seven  hundred  years  has  not 
wholly  delivered  us  from  Scholasticism.  Indeed,  it  is  to  be  hoped 
that  it  has  not,  since  Scholasticism,  ideally  conceived,  means 
thoroughness  of  thought  and  consistency  of  reasoning.  How  did 
historical  Scholasticism  arise  and  how  is  its  career  to  be  evaluated  ? 
There  was  Scholasticism  among  the  ancients  just  as  there  is 
Scholasticism  now.  The  term  s^olastit^ps  is  of  Greek  origin 
and  crept  into  usage  after  Aristotle,  when  it  was  employed  to 
indicate  the  professional  philosopher.  Its  general  meaning  seems 
to  have  been  that  of  the  scholar  and  then,  finally,  the  pedant.  The 
spirit  of  Scholasticism  was  rampant  among  the  Greeks  in  the 
form  of  sophistry,  nevertheless  that  period,  the  fifth  century  B.C., 
and  the  great  era  of  Scholasticism,  the  Xlllth  century,  were 
periods  of  popular  enlightenment.  When,  therefore,  we  enjoy 

234 


THE  SCHOLASTIC  METHOD  235 

tie  downright  desire  to  get  ideas  out  of  history  and  take  our 
goods  wherever  we  find  them,  we  find  it  expedient  to  eliminate 
as  much  prejudice  as  possible  and  treat  mediaeval  Scholasticism 
in  the  same  spirit  that  we  treated  Greek  culture  and  Roman 
civilization.  Once  that  Scholasticism  belonged  to  the  Church, 
now  it  is  the  property  of  the  world;  and  once  a  movement  within 
the  history  of  the  Church,  it  has  become  a  factor  in  the  history 
of  mankind  at  large. 

THE  SCHOLASTIC  METHOD 

Since  it  is  our  aim  to  get  values  out  of  historical  periods  wher- 
ever valuable  periods  are  to  be  found,  we  must  begin  by  praising 
and  appraising  the  very  formalism  of  the  scholastic  movement. 
The  Schoolmen  sharpened  the  tools  of  philosophy  that  later  on 
were  to  be  used  by  science.  Scholasticism  itself  was  not  science, 
but  it  had  the  scientific  spirit  of  reducing  particular  facts  to  gen- 
eral principles.  What  it  needed  was  the  clearer  observation  of 
those  facts  and  their  mathematical  values  as  shown  by  experiment. 
This  need  was  on  the  point  of  being  supplied  by  Roger  Bacon,  a 
Franciscan  monk,  who  desired  to  reform  Scholasticism  by  the 
introduction  of  the  sciences,  but  whose  work  was  hindered  by 
the  outer  power  and  inner  influence  of  the  Church.  If,  by  some 
miracle  of  time,  the  work  of  Bacon  had  been  carried  out,  the 
beginnings  of  modern  science  might  have  been  anticipated  by 
something  like  three  centuries.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  if  another 
temporal  miracle  could  have  been  wrought  so  that  the  universities 
of  the  XHIth  century  had  dropped  their  Schoolmen,  reached 
forward  in  time,  and  grasped  a  group  of  Empiricists  and  Prag- 
matists  to  fill  their  chairs,  it  would  be  difficult  to  see  how  modern 
science  would  ever  have  come  into  its  own. 

This  is  because  modern  science  at  its  inception  was  not  based 
upon  "facts"  and  "consequences,"  but  proceeded  from  some- 
thing like  the  beliefs  and  dogmas  of  the  XHIth-century  mind. 
Moreover,  the  field  of  this  original  science  was  not  the  earth, 
where  facts  and  consequences  are  so  evident;  it  was  the  heavens, 
where  abstract  ideas  and  unearthly  principles  are  in  force.  The 
early  modern  period  with  its  astronomy  was  in  harmony  with 


SCHOLASTIC  CULTURE 

the  late  mediaeval  period  in  its  theology,  for  the  spirits  of  both 
periods  were  one  in  viewing  the  heavens  as  the  expression  of  the 
divine  intellect  and  will.  Copernicus  felt  that  he  was  honoring 
God  when  he  considered  the  gorgeous  sun  the  center  of  the  solar 
system  and  believed  it  harmonious  with  God's  nature  to  think 
of  the  planets  as  revolving  in  circles  around  it.  Kepler  was  even 
more  religious  in  his  attitude  when,  with  reluctance,  he  had 
concluded  that  the  planets  move  in  ellipses.  He  regarded  the  sun 
as  God  the  Father;  the  sphere  of  the  fixed  stars  as  God;  the  sun 
and  the  aether  through  which,  as  he  thought,  the  planets  moved 
as  God  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  astronomy  of  the  XVIth  century  did 
leap  out  of  scholastic  bounds,  but  now  it  is  beginning  to  look 
as  though  the  physics  of  the  XXth  century  were  on  the  point  of 
leaping  out  of  the  boundaries  set  by  all  the  classic  physics  of  the 
past.  But  in  all  this,  the  intellectual  spirit  of  Scholasticism  must 
not  be  overlooked  nor  its  importance  allowed  to  suffer  from  the 
narrowness  of  its  range.  The  spirit  of  Scholasticism  was  such  as 
to  include  the  intelligibility  of  the  universe  and  the  ability  of  the 
human  mind  to  comprehend  it. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  violate  the  traditional  divisions  of  history 
in  order  to  exercise  intellectual  sympathy  for  Scholasticism.  As 
usual,  we  can  date  the  whole  period  of  mediaevalism  from  the 
fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  Vth  century  to  the  fall  of  the 
Grecian  Empire  at  Constantinople  in  the  XVth.  The  part  of 
the  thousand  years  allotted  to  Scholasticism  may  be  considered 
about  one  half.  This  period  we  may  date,  if  we  choose,  from  the 
birth  of  Scotus  Erigena  soon  after  the  year  800  to  the  death  of 
Duns  Scotus  in  1308.  There  were  Schoolmen  before  Scotus 
Erigena  —  Bede  and  Alcuin;  and  there  were  scholastic  thinkers 
after  Duns  Scotus  —  William  of  Occam  and  Nicolas  Cusanus. 
Scholasticism  as  such  may  be  considered  in  two  forms,  one  pe- 
culiar to  such  a  characteristic  thinker  as  Abelard  (1079-1142),  the 
other  forever  associable  with  the  name  of  Aquinas  (1227-1274). 
Scholasticism  began  as  a  movement  to  rationalize  the  doctrines  of 
the  Church;  it  ended  in  an  elaborate  system  of  civilization  and 
culture.  A  vine  was  planted,  took  deep  root,  and  began  to  fill 
the  land;  the  hills  wefe  covered  with  the  shadow  of  it  and  it  sent 
out  branches  unto  the  river  and  boughs  unto  the  sea. 


FA9ADE   OF   THE   CATHEDRAL  OF   RHEIMS 

Gothic  architecture,  an  exemplification  of  Christianity  seeking 
definite  form  and  highly  detailed  articulation,  is  here 

seen  at  its  best* 
(facing  page  237) 


SCHOLASTIC  CULTURE 

This  scholastic  vine,  as  we  are  calling  it,  may  have  been  more 
leafy  than  fruitful;  but  it  possessed  life  and  showed  itself  capable 
of  ramifying  into  all  the  nooks  and  crannies  of  Church  and 
State.  There  was  theology  above  and  philosophy  beneath  it  all, 
but  between  these  chill  poles  expanded  a  sphere  of  enterprises 
and  activities.  Let  us  mention  the  most  important  ones  and 
reserve  a  few  of  them  for  subsequent  discussion. 

SCHOLASTIC  CULTURE 

Outwardly  nothing  is  more  impressive  of  the  Xlllth  century 
than  the  cathedrals,  the  Gothic  Cathedral,  enorme  et  delicate. 
Inwardly  this  era  expressed  its  yearning  spirit  in  the  foundation 
of  universities.  The  artistic  spirit  spoke  again  in  the  frescoes 
of  such  masters  as  Cimabue  and  Giotto,  in  the  naturalism  of 
Giotto.  Not  only  the  brush,  but  the  pen  also  was  under  the 
inspiration  of  the  age,  as  one  sees  from  Reynard  the  Fox,  The 
Golden  Legend,  and  The  Romance  of  the  Rose.  In  different 
vein  were  The  Cid,  The  Nibelungen  Lied,  and  the  completion  of 
the  Arthur  Legend,  just  as  there  was  also  Parsival  by  Wolfram 
von  Eschenbach  and  the  little  story  of  Aucassin  and  Nicolette. 
Then,  in  lighter  form,  was  the  music  of  the  Meistersingers  and 
Troubadours  balanced  so  majestically  by  such  hymns  as  Stab  at 
Mater  and  Dies  Irae.  There  was,  of  course,  the  ponderous  the- 
ology of  Thomas  Aquinas  and  his  Summa,  but  the  spirit  of  this 
was  lightened  and  humanized  by  Dante  in  his  Divina  Commedia. 
The  tone  and  tendency  of  such  aesthetic  products  was  neither 
mediaeval  nor  modern,  but  rejoiced  in  a  delightful  form  of  am- 
biguity and  feeling  of  wistfulness. 

In  more  practical  ways  the  century  witnessed  the  creation  of 
the  Friar  Movement,  that  of  St.  Francis  in  Italy  and  St.  Dpminic 
in  Spain.  Out  of  the  Dominicans  was  to  come  the  speculative 
theology  of  Thomas  Aquinas  and  from  the  Franciscans  the  more 
practical  system  of  Duns  Scotus  and  the  subsequent  conflict  be- 
tween Thomism  and  Scotism.  In  the  affairs  of  state  appeared 
the  Magna  Carta,  the  establishment  of  England's  Parliament, 
and  Bracton's  collection  of  laws,  which  became  the  foundation  of 
modern  common  law.  In  commerce,  there  was  the  Hanseatic 


SCHOLASTIC  CULTURE 

League  of  cities  and  the  free  cities  with  the  modern  ideal  of  self- 
government.  There  was  also  a  delightful  secularism  being  en- 
gendered by  cathedral  building  in  the  form  of  an  arts-and-crafts 
movement  or  what  might  be  called  technical  schools,  where  the 
community  received  instruction  in  manipulating  stone,  wood, 
metal,  glass,  and  the  like.  The  social  effect  of  this  activity  was 
seen  in  the  formation  of  guilds  which  included  merchants  as 
well  as  artisans.  The  aesthetical  or  ethical  result  was  that  of 
self-expression  through  work.  The  plan  of  the  cathedral  was  so 
exact  as  to  suggest  the  rigor  of  scholastic  theology,  but  the  exe- 
cution of  the  details  as  in  the  ornaments  and  appurtenances  was 
such  as  to  invite  individual  taste  and  private  expression.  In  this 
sense  of  a  fixed  plan  and  the  free  execution  of  it,  the  Gothic  ar- 
rived and  for  a  while  remained  at  the  summit  of  ideal  activity. 

THE  GOTHIC  ERA 

Before  we  are  forced  to  consider  the  thin  abstractions  of  scho- 
lastic culture,  we  are  privileged  to  observe  its  counterpart  in  more 
concrete  and  beautiful  forms.  These  we  find  in  Gothic  architec- 
ture. Already  we  have  referred  to  it  as  though  it  were  an  exem- 
plification of  the  scholastic  spirit,  but  doubtless  it  is  wiser  to 
regard  both  the  Scholastic  and  the  Gothic  as  exemplifications  of 
a  common  Christianity  seeking  definite  form  and  highly  detailed 
articulation.  Both  the  scholastic  and  the  Gothic  tendency  was 
to  decide  upon  a  definite  plan  and  then  carry  this  out  in  detail. 
In  both  alike  was  a  certain  touch  of  individualism  —  the  Nomi- 
nalism that  released  the  particular  person  from  the  toils  of  Real- 
ism, the  fineness  and  fantasy  of  decoration  whereby  the  private 
workman  expressed  his  genius  in  comparative  independence  of 
the  general  plan  of  structure.  In  the  instance  of  architecture,  it  is 
difficult  to  conceive  of  a  more  perfect  ideal  of  universality  and 
particularity. 

Most  of  us  are  inclined  to  gaze  upon  a  Gothic  structure  as 
though  it  were  only  a  very  ecclesiastical  form  of  architecture 
signified  by  pointed  arches,  stained-glass  windows,  and  gargoyles. 
The  spirit  of  the  structure,  however,  is  much  deeper.  Like  all 
architecture,  the  Gothic  must  adapt  itself  to  the  downward  force 


THE  GOTHIC  ERA  239 

of  gravity  and  the  rigidity  of  the  building  material.  Prior  to  the 
creation  of  the  Gothic  this  conflict  between  gravity  and  rigidity 
had  been  met  chiefly  by  means  of  the  heavy  column  and  the 
thick  wall.  The  effect,  as  in  the  case  of  a  pagan  temple  or  a 
Christian  church,  was  impressive,  but  the  spirit  of  the  structure 
ponderous.  It  was  the  aim  of  the  Gothic  architect  to  solve  his 
structural  problem  in  such  a  way  that  slim  supports  might  be 
able  to  lift  the  load  to  an  unusual  height  and  likewise  provide  for 
breadth  of  design.  The  arch  was  in  vogue  and  even  the  pointed 
arch  had  been  adopted,  but  the  Gothic  architect  conceived  of  the 
idea  of  using  a  pointed  arch  made  up  of  two  sections  of  circular 
ones.  In  this  chiefly  lay  the  originality  of  his  design.  What  is 
the  Gothic? 

Probably  we  can  most  fully  grasp  the  Gothic  idea  if  we  con- 
sider the  groined  arch  within  the  cathedral  and  the  flying  but- 
tress on  the  outside.  All  true  Gothic  is  the  balance  of  the  masses 
and  forces  that  these  arches  and  buttresses  suggest.  The  function 
of  the  groined  arch  is  to  convey  the  load  from  the  lines  of 
the  walls  to  the  points  of  the  pillars.  Right  at  these  points,  the 
groining  is  executed  in  such  a  way  as  to  carry  sections  of  the 
load  to  corresponding  divisions  of  the  pillars  below.  If  it  were 
not  a  grotesque  suggestion,  we  might  imagine  that  the  masonry 
above  is  like  a  huge  vat  whose  thick  contents  is  drained  off 
downwards  by  means  o£  pipe-like  pillars.  Commensurate  with 
the  downward  thrust,  accounted  for  by  the  groined  arches,  is  the 
lateral  thrust  taken  up  at  the  same  points  by  the  flying  buttresses, 
which  carry  over  to  the  sturdy  piers  flanking  the  building.  In  this 
manner,  the  enormous  structure  keeps  its  balance.  All  parts  of 
the  Gothic,  even  the  minarets  which  seem  to  rejoice  in  only 
decorative  forms,  have  their  part  to  play  and  play  it  in  such  a 
way  as  to  make  the  truly  structural  appear  spectacular. 

With  this  rough  word-sketch  before  us,  we  are  now  in  a  po- 
sition to  speak  of  the  Gothic  as  an  architectural  system  of  thrust 
and  counter-thrust  in  which,  as  it  were,  an  active  mass  of  material 
is  realizing  the  third  law  of  motion,  of  action  and  reaction. 
These  thrusts  are  of  three  forms  —  downwards,  sideways,  and 
lengthwise.  The  direct,  downward  thrust  carries  its  portion  of 
the  load  on  the  great  pillars  resting  upon  the  floor.  The  lateral 


240  SCHOLASTIC  CULTURE 

thrust,  north  and  south,  is  accounted  for  by  the  striving  system 
o£  flying  arches  and  supporting  buttresses.  To  the  east,  the  lon- 
gitudinal thrust  is  met  by  the  towers  with  their  gigantic  bases, 
while  to  the  west  the  same  line  of  thrust  encounters  the  well- 
buttressed  apse.  The  whole  structure  when  thus  understood 
seems  to  take  on  a  dynamic  character  which  represents  the  effect 
of  energy  rather  than  the  mere  appearance  of  mass. 

The  artistic  effect  is,  first  of  all,  that  of  sincerity,  in  that  the 
spectacular  character  of  the  edifice  is  in  harmony  with  the  struc- 
ture that  expresses  it.  Matter  and  form  are  one,  and  beauty  is 
achieved  by  means  of  adequate  expression;  nothing  is  wanting, 
and  all  the  material  involved  in  the  building  is  in  its  appointed 
place  doing  its  appointed  work.  The  aesthetic  effect  is  such  that 
the  edifice  becomes  a  work  of  art  akin  to  a  statue  or  painting  or 
sonata.  This  effect  appears  outwardly  in  the  exquisite  carving, 
especially  on  the  facade,  but  present  high  up  among  the  flying 
buttresses  also.  Inwardly  the  impression  of  the  painter's  art 
comes  forth  in  the  stained-glass  windows  which  occupy  most  of 
the  wall  space,  giving  the  impression,  as  in  the  Sainte  Chapelle 
in  Paris,  that  the  structure  rests  upon  or  is  composed  of  glass. 
The  motif  of  the  decorations,  likewise,  is  noteworthy  for  its 
naturalness;  it  is  based  chiefly  upon  floral  designs  rendered  with 
the  charm  of  simplicity  and  delightful  earthliness.  From  the 
exact  standpoint  of  time,  the  Gothic  must  be  lodged  in  the  me- 
diaeval period,  but  the  engineering  principle  involved  in  the 
structure  and  the  sumptuousness  of  impression  created  are  dis- 
tinctly modern  and  are  only  two  of  the  various  indications  of  how 
wistful  of  novelty  was  the  whole  XHIth  century. 

THE  RISE  OF  UNIVERSITIES 

Around  the  cathedrals  there  grew  up  schools;  hence  we  can 
pass  from  Gothic  architecture  to  scholastic  theology  and  philoso- 
phy by  way  of  the  mediaeval  university.  In  this  institution  we 
find  much  that  still  survives  in  the  higher  education  of  the  pres- 
ent. We  have  still  the  university  with  its  colleges  and  schools, 
the  degrees  of  bachelor,  master,  and  doctor,  the  cap  and  gown  and 
the  conflict  between  "town  and  gown."  Our  curriculum  is 


no 


CANNON  OF  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY 

*  alfo  coufc 


not/  ($n 


FRAGMENT  OF  CAXTON'S  PRINTING  FROM  HIS  EDITION  OF  THE 
Prologue  to  Virgil's  Aendd 


CATHlMbftALy  PARIS 

The  flying  buttresses,  pictured  here,  are  characteristic  of 
Gothic  architecture. 


THE  RISE  OF  UNIVERSITIES 

vastly  different  from  that  of  the  original  university,  but  the  form 
of  the  institution  still  abides;  so  that  we  are  scholastic  in  spite  of 
ourselves.  The  mediaeval  university  was  a  spontaneous  affair  and 
seems  to  have  started  as  a  guild  made  up  of  teachers  and  schol- 
ars. In  Italy,  as  at  Bologna,  the  government  of  the  university 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  students,  while  at  the  University  of  Paris 
the  control  was  exercised  by  the  teachers.  The  basis  of  study 
was  logic,  the  method  of  instruction  oral,  and  the  method  pursued, 
was  that  of  discussion  rather  than  of  study  and  research. 

The  original  institution  was  known  as  studium  generate,  and 
it  was  not  until  its  members  formed  an  academic  corporation 
that  it  became  a  university.  The  spontaneity  of  spiritual  freedom 
of  these  universities  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  a  school  grew  up, 
was  recognized  publicly,  and  sometimes  attained  to  great  fame 
before  it  received  ecclesiastical  recognition.  We  observe  this  most 
strikingly  in  the  case  of  the  University  of  Paris.  As  far  back  as 
the  "end  of  the  Xlth  century  the  great  William  of  Champeaux 
gave  lectures  on  theology  in  the  school  of  Notre  Dame,  but  it 
was  not  until  the  beginning  of  the  XHIth  century  that  the  Univer- 
sity of  Paris  was  incorporated.  It  was  recognized  as  such  by  a 
brief  of  Pope  Innocent  III  in  the  year  1211,  and  then  became  the 
great  mediaeval  university. 

The  development  of  the  university  idea  follows  a  chronological 
line  from  Italy  to  France,  England,  and  Germany.  What  may 
be  called  the  first  university  in  the  world  was  that  of  Salerno, 
which  was  a  more  or  less  famous  school  of  medicine  in  the  IXth 
century.  From  medicine,  the  emphasis  changed  to  law  when, 
about  the  year  1000,  there  was  a  revival  of  legal  studies  in  Bologna, 
where  a  second  university  was  started.  This  one  branch  of  study 
did  not  make  a  university  in  the  true  sense  of  that  term,  but  by 
the  year  1200  medicine  and  philosophy  were  introduced;  it  was 
not,  however,  until  the  middle  of  the  XlVth  century  that  the 
pope  proclaimed  Bologna  a  studium  generate  in  theology.  As 
for  Oxford,  attempts  have  been  made  to  date  the  founding  of  this 
venerable  institution  back  to  the  days  of  Alfred  the  Great,  but 
actual  history  yields  no  more  than  a  record  to  the  effect  that  in 
1167  Oxford  was  recognized  as  a  studium  generde.  Oxford  seems 
to  have  been  modeled  on  the  University  of  Paris,  rivaled  it  in  the 

S,T, — 17 


SCHOLASTIC  CULTURE 

study  of  theology,  and  reclaimed  from  it  certain  of  its  more  emi- 
nent English  students.  Oxford  imitated  Paris  likewise  in  the 
founding  of  separate  colleges—  University  College  in  1249;  Bal- 
liol,  1263;  and  Merton,  1264.  We  mention  these  since  they  are 
still  in  existence;  we  stress  the  importance  of  Oxford  since  Mat- 
thew Arnold  suggested  that  it  was  the  last  stronghold  of  Scho- 
lasticism in  modern  times. 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  PARIS 

But  it  is  still  the  University  of  Paris  that  must  be  kept  before 
the  eye  if  we  are  to  visualize  the  scholastic  situation.  This  me- 
diaeval institution  came  into  prominence  through  the  lectures  of 
William  of  Charnpeaux  (died  1121),  the  great  exponent  of  me- 
diaeval Realism.  Paris  was  originally  the  authoritative  center  of 
scholastic  theology,  but  afterwards  developed  all  four  of  the  great 
departments  —  theology,  philosophy,  law,  and  medicine.  These 
have  been  called  the  four  Parisian  faculties.  Paris  developed  its 
system  of  colleges,  the  first  of  which  was  the  Sorbonne.  These 
colleges  suggest  not  only  their  counterparts  in  mediaeval  Oxford, 
but  also  our  modern  system  of  dormitories,  if  not  the  more  ad- 
vanced system  of  "houses"  introduced  at  Harvard  and  Yale. 
The  purpose  of  the  college  was  to  provide  board  and  lodging  for 
the  student  and  furnish  him  further  with  the  supervision  of  a 
master.  These  provisions  seemed  as  necessary  then  as  they 
do  now. 

The  influence  of  the  University  of  Paris  is  attested  by  the  divi- 
sion of  the  student  body  into  "  nations,"  which  have  been  spoken 
of  as  though  they  represented  most  of  the  civilized  world.  The 
four  nations  at  Paris  were  France  and  England,  Picardy  and 
Normandy.  "  Though  this  division  is  mentioned  for  the  first 
rime  in  a  public  document  in  a  bull  of  Innocent  IV  of  1245,  it 
existed,  at  any  rate  as  a  working  arrangement,  in  the  Xllth  cen- 
tury."1 There  were  famous  students  among  these  academic 
"nations."  Abelard  was  a  pupil  of  William  of  Champeaux; 
Peter  Lombard,  author  of  the  dogmatic  Sentences,  was  a  pupil  of 
Abelard,  It  would  be  using  the  jargon  of  popular  history  to  say 
1  Tilley,  The  Literature  of  the  French  Renaissance,  p.  81. 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  PARIS  243 

that  students  "  flocked  "  to  the  great  Parisian  university;  it  would 
be  worse  than  jargon  to  state  some  of  the  figures  supposed  to 
indicate  the  size  of  these  academic  "  flocks/'  and,  in  the  case  of 
smaller  university  towns,  to  state  further  that  "  gown"  was  much' 
greater  than  "  town."  Apparently  the  boast  based  upon  numbers 
is  mediaeval  as  well  as  modern,  but  in  dealing  with  the  enroll- 
ment at  the  typical  scholastic  university  it  is  wiser  to  speak  in 
terms  of  thousands  than  tens  of  thousands.  In  speaking  of  the 
greatest  of  the  universities  Tilley  says,  "  We  shall  thus  on  a  most 
liberal  computation  get  5000  for  the  number  of  persons,  including 
men,  youths,  and  children,  engaged  in  the  work  of  education  at 
the  University  of  Paris  at  its  most  flourishing  epoch."2 

Instead  of  quoting  extensive  and  impersonal  figures  with  the 
idea  of  enhancing  the  glory  of  mediaeval  learning,  we  had 
better  state  that,  in  addition  to  the  names  already  mentioned,  the 
list  of  students  at  Paris  included  the  names  of  such  Englishmen 
as  John  of  Salisbury,  Alexander  of  Hales,  Robert  Grosseteste,  and 
Roger  Bacon.  Among  the  Italians  who  might  be  claimed  as 
alumni  were  Thomas  Aquinas,  Bonaventura,  Dante,  and  his 
teacher  Brunetto  Latini.  Those  were  days  when  men  were 
greater  than  the  things  they  taught  and  students  far  superior  to 
their  studies.  But  with  the  advance  of  learning  and  the  develop- 
ment of  science,  the  reverse  is  -true  today.  Our  science  like  our 
civilization  towers  above  us  and  we  occupy  a  place  in  a  culture 
and  civilization  which  we  are  unable  to  fill. 

If  a  university  student  in  the  year  1232  could  rise  from  the  dead 
and  converse  with  a  member  of  the  class  of  1932,  the  two  would 
have  mutual  difficulty  in  making  themselves  understood.  The 
mediaeval  student  would  know  everything  about  his  narrow  cur- 
riculum; the  modern,  who  had  "  majored  "  in  this,  "  minored  " 
in  that,  and  "  specialized  "  in  the  other,  would  disclaim  all  aca- 
demic responsibility  for  anything  outside  his  "course."  The 
mediaeval  student  inherited  the  old  trwium — grammar,  dialec- 
tic, rhetoric;  the  quadrivium  —  geometry,  arithmetic,  music,  as- 
tronomy, dating  as  far  back  as  Varro  in  the  second  century. 
These  "  seven  liberal  arts  "  included  a  little  more  than  these  titles 
indicate,  but  there  was  nothing  practical  or  vocational  about  them, 

2  /£.,  p.  192. 


SCHOLASTIC  CULTURE 

The  modern  student  would  show  himself  much  better  informed 
than  his  scholastic  brother,  but  would  have  to  confess  that  he  had 
but  touched  the  periphery  of  the  academic  circle,  whose  courses 
cannot  be  expressed  fully  even  by  using  the  term  centrivium. 
The  student  of  the  old  order  had  the  mill,  but  not  the  grain; 
the  modern  student  has  inherited  a  rich  harvest  of  knowledge, 
but  is  not  so  well  equipped  with  a  mill  to  grind  it  fine.  What 
was  the  nature  of  the  scholastic  mill? 

MEDIAEVAL  REALISM 

If  we  wish  to  grasp  Scholasticism  and  appropriate  its  value,  we 
caa  do  no  better  than  lay  hold  of  its  great  horns  —Nominalism 
and  Realism.  The  Schoolmen  found  this  double-edged  doctrine 
in  Boethius  (470-525);  Boethius  found  it  in  Porphyry  (233-303), 
who  took  it  from  Aristotle,  who  himself  had  found  it  in  Plato,  as 
Plato  learned  it  from  Socrates.  Prom  Boethius  the  doctrine  went 
forward  to  such  professionals  as  Roscellinus,  William  of  Cham- 
peaux,  and  the  delicious  Abelard.  At  a  later  period  of  Scholasti- 
cism, Albertus  Magnus  seemed  to  settle  the  question,  or  draw  it 
out  of  the  field  of  discussion,  so  that  scholastic  differences  therein- 
after were  drawn  along  different  lines  when  the  Dominicans  and 
Franciscans  came  to  verbal  blows.  When  Socrates  taught  his 
disciples  to  think  in  terms  of  universal  ideas,  little  did  he  realize 
that  he  would  start  a  mediaeval  controversy,  and  just  as  little  do 
we  realize  that  the  question  concerning  the  nature  of  these 
Socratic  universals  is  still  with  us.  Before  we  can  appreciate  our 
Nominalism  and  our  Realism,  we  must  see  how  the  Schoolmen 
felt  about  the  matter. 

Of  course,  their  orthodox  interest  would  be  in  the  universal 
idea  in  all  its  solidarity.  Their  interest  in  the  great  issues  of  life 
—  God,  Man,  Church,  Sin,  and  Salvation  —  and  their  indifference 
to  the  minutiae  of  existence  as  we  find  these  in  rnetals,  plants, 
animals,  and  the  like  would  make  them  Realists.  This  term,  by 
the  way,  had  a  meaning  the  very  opposite  of  what  it  enjoys  today 
and  can  better  be  understood  in  the  form  of  "  Idealism,"  Platonistic 
or  objective  idealism  which  means  the  reality  of  ideas.  In  the 
controversy  over  the  nature  of  universals,  the  Nominalists  insisted 


MEDIAEVAL  REALISM  245 

that  these  were  but  convenient  names,  abstractions,  or  symbols. 
Apart  from  particular  elms,  pines,  and  palms,  there  would  be  no 
Tree;  if  it  were  not  for  the  existent  Peter  and  Paul,  there  would 
be  no  Man.  The  Realist,  however,  was  of  the  opinion  that  the 
individual  thing  is  only  a  specimen  of  the  species,  so  that  Man, 
Tree,  and  Metal  mean  more  than  just  this  Peter  or  that  elm  or  the 
other  bit  of  gold.  When  the  ideas  in  dispute  were  those  of  God 
and  Man,  Church  and  Salvation,  Realism  became  unusually  im- 
portant. If  only  the  individual  is  real,  God  amounts  to  only 
the  three  separate  persons  in  the  Trinity,  Man  was  not  lost  in 
Adam  and  saved  through  Christ,  and  the  Church  is  not  really 
Catholic,  or  universal.  Roscellinus  (<r.  1050-^*.  1122)  insisted  on 
Nominalism  and  rejected  the  idea  that  there  was  the  same  divine 
essence  in  the  three  persons  of  the  Trinity  even  when  he  was 
driven  to  the  doctrine  of  Tritheism.  He  was  just  as  insistent  in 
the  case  of  Man,  whose  sin,  he  contended,  was  not  the  original, 
solidaric  sin  of  Adam,  but  personal  transgressions  here  and  there. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  understand  how  the  Church  adopted  the 
Realism  taught  by  William  of  Champeaux,  who  all  but  did 
away  with  individuals  and  made  so  much  of  the  one  Uni- 
versal as  to  approach  Pantheism.  Abelard  helped  matters 
somewhat  and  put  the  difficult  doctrine  in  a  more  acceptable 
form.  He  was  too  much  of  a  philosopher  to  agree  with  Roscel- 
linus in  saying  that  only  particular  things  are  real;  he  was  too 
much  interested  in  the  affairs  of  this  life,  as  his  love  affair  with 
Eloise,  to  blot  out  all  individuality  as  William  of  Champeaux  had 
done.  Hence  Abelard  invented  a  kind  of  Conceptualism  accord- 
ing to  which  the  universal  is  only  a  concept  until  it  enters  and 
exists  in  the  individual,  whereupon  it  becomes  real.  Later  on 
Albertus  Magnus  pointed  out  that  a  thing  has  a  nominalistic 
form  when  perceived,  becomes  conceptualistic  when  thought 
about,  and  is  itself  realistic  in  its  metaphysical  character. 

If  we  wish  to  draw  the  line  between  mediaeval  and  modern, 
we  can  do  so  lightly  and  waveringly  by  attributing  Realism  to  the 
Schoolmen  and  Nominalism  to  the  scientists.  There  were  Nomi- 
nalists then  as  there  are  Realists  now.  They  had  their  bold  Ros- 
cellinus at  the  beginning  of  the  period  and  their  sharp  William 
of  Occam  at  the  end.  But  the  difference  between  the  two  Nomi- 


246  SCHOLASTIC  CULTURE 

nalists  was  this:  the  Nominalism  of  Roscellinus  was  a  challenge 
to  the  scholastic  spirit  and  ends  in  a  triumphant  Realism,  while 
that  of  Occam  was  an  invitation  to  the  modern  spirit  to  cultivate 
separate  languages,  develop  special  sciences,  found  independent 
States,  and  break  up  the  old  Caesarean-Catholic  tradition.  This 
new  Nominalism  was  the  spirit  of  the  Renaissance  and  the  Ref- 
ormation, for  it  sought  to  release  individual  genius  and  private 
conscience. 

REALISM  TODAY 

How  does  such  a  scholastic  distinction  affect  us  now  that  we 
are  safely  ensconced  in  Modernism  and  seven  or  eight  centuries 
removed  from  the  original  conflict?  It  affects  us  practically 
whenever  we  are  confronted  by  any  sharp  contrast  between  the 
individual  and  organized  society.  We  may  live  day  by  day  from 
hand  to  mouth  after  the  manner  of  an  irresponsible  Nominalism 
emphasizing  the  inviolability  of  the  individual  and  the  self- 
determination  of  individual  nations.  But  in  time  of  war,  the 
State  assumes  the  form  of  Realism  and  exercises  all  manner  of 
domination  over  the  individual  citizen,  subjecting  him  to  con- 
scription, taxation,  and  the  like.  In  a  time  of  peace,  such  as  has 
followed  the  World  War,  the  Nominalism  of  nations  is  ques- 
tioned on  the  ground  that  justice  demands  a  League  of  Nations 
with  authority  over  its  nationalistic  members.  In  special  cases, 
as  that  of  the  German  Empire  before  the  war  and  the  Russian 
Soviet  since,  the  effects  of  Realism  are  observed  in  the  way 
that  a  supreme  and  impersonal  organization  called  "  Reich  "  or 
"  Soviet "  assumes  such  an  authority  as  to  create  the  impression 
that  it  is  a  kind  of  entity  in  itself  or  something  distinct  from  the 
individuals  who  compose  it.  As  with  mediaeval  Realism,  so  with 
modern;  it  is  when  an  organization,  theological  or  political,  de- 
sires to  exercise  supreme  authority  that  Realism  is  resorted  to. 
The  difference  is  that  mediaeval  Realism  was  a  conscious  con- 
cept worked  out  by  means  of  classic  Conceptualism  and  scholastic 
logic,  while  modern  Realism  is  less  conscious  and  less  rational. 

The  popular  mind,  which  has  no  conception  of  scholastic  phi- 
losophy, involves  this  Realism  in  matters  that  have  interest  for  it. 


MODERN  NOMINALISM 

In  the  spirit  of  mediaeval  Realism,  we  refer  to  the  Law  as  though 
it  existed  in  independence  of  particular  law-makers  and  individual 
statutes.  At  the  present  time  we  are  complaining  that  there  is 
little  respect  for  Law,  although  we  do  not  take  pains  to  stipulate 
what  law  we  have  in  mind.  In  like  manner,  we  of  the  commer- 
cial age  refer  to  Wealth  as  an  entity  apart  from  commodities  and 
the  prices  we  command.  So  fully  convinced  are  we  that  Wealth 
exists  that  we  refer  to  the  desirability,  the  power,  the  menace  of 
Wealth,  and  the  like.  In  spite  of  individual  liberties  and  states' 
rights,  we  talk  about  the  Government  as  though  it  were  a  thing 
or  even  a  person  to  be  praised  for  prosperity  and  blamed  for 
depression.  Even  when  the  religious  community  is  divided  along 
the  heavy  lines  of  Catholic,  Protestant,  and  Jew,  and  subdivided 
into  a  manifold  of  Protestant  sects,  we  are  ready  to  speak  of  the 
Church  and  assert  that  it  is  behind  the  times  or  not  doing  its 
duty.  We  are  inclined  to  regard  the  stock  market  as  a  reality 
and  read  reports  to  the  effect  that  the  Market  was  "  steady  "  or 
"  nervous  "  or  "  dull."  When  we  try  to  think  scientifically  about 
society,  we  refer  to  it  as  a  "  social  organism  "  or  a  "  social  con- 
sciousness," paying  very  little  attention  to  the  heterogeneous  col- 
lection of  individuals  who  compose  it.  In  the  same  manner  we 
say  that  Science  says  this  or  that,  when  science  itself  is  made  up 
of  physics  and  chemistry,  biology  and  psychology  in  their  various 
branches. 

MODERN  NOMINALISM 

On  the  side  of  modern  Nominalism,  we  find  the  bold  doctrines 
of  individualists  like  Emerson,  Max  Stirner,  Nietzsche,  and  Ber- 
nard Shaw.  Men  of  this  type  see  nothing  over  their  heads  but 
the  blue  sky  —  no  Church  or  State  or  Society.  They  resist  classi- 
fication and  refuse  to  be  subordinated  to  an  idea.  In  their  minds, 
these  circles  of  classification  are  like  iron  rings;  hence  they  are 
inclined  to  say,  "  Let  us  burst  their  bands  asunder  and  cast  their 
cords  from  us."  Emerson  expressed  this  American  Nominalism 
a  century  ago  when  he  said,  "  Unhand  me  ";  "  the  world  is  gov- 
erned too  much  ";  "  good  men  must  not  obey  the  laws  too  well "; 
"keep  the  universe  open";  "embroil  the  confusion."  Such 


248  SCHOLASTIC  CULTURE 

Nominalists  will  go  to  extremes,  as  Max  Stirner  did  when  he 
said,  "  The  truth  is  my  truth."  Stirner  regarded  the  social  order 
as  a  spook,  just  as  Ibsen  spoke  of  the  solidaric  traditions  of 
society  as  "  ghosts."  But  are  we  not  haunted  by  the  "  ghosts  "  of 
Realism  and  Nominalism,  systems  that  were  supposed  to  have 
expired  centuries  ago? 

These  scholastic  ways  of  handling  fundamental  ideas  cling  to 
us  or  we  cling  to  them  because  they  still  represent  true  situations 
in  the  mind.  Most  of  us  are  inclined  to  side  with  the  Nominal- 
ists, who  seem  much  more  modern  than  the  Realists;  moreover, 
the'  Nominalists  rejoiced  in  a  spirit  of  independence  which  we 
gladly  share.  But  deeper  insight  into  the  nature  of  things  reveals 
the  reappearance  of  Realism,  although  in  an  altered  form.  The 
great,  general  example  of  this  Realism  is  in  the  modern  concep- 
tion of  Natural  Law,  which  latter  must  be  taken  to  mean  a  real 
mode  of  behavior  on  the  part  of  nature  rather  than  a  verbal  state- 
ment of  this  made  by  the  rnind  of  man.  A  more  specific  example 
of  modern  Realism  appears  in  the  principle  of  evolution,  which 
is  to  be  understood  as  a  force  actually  transforming  inorganic 
matter,  plants,  and  animals,  and  not  a  scientific  theory,  like  In- 
sensible Variations  or  Sudden  Mutations,  supposed  to  account  for 
this.  History  also  is  deserving  of  a  realistic  interpretation  in  the 
sense  that  history  is  not  merely  a  nominal  record  of  events,  but  a 
realization  of  a  force  whereby  these  events  come  to  pass.  Our 
Nominalism  is  a  constant  protest  against  undue  authority  and  ex- 
cessive dogmatism.  Beneath  it  is  our  Realism,  which  may  be 
appreciated  in  the  form  of  classic  and  scholastic  universals  in  ac- 
tual operation  in  nature  and  the  civilization  of  mankind. 

Our  inability  to  entertain  intelligent  sympathy  for  mediaeval 
culture  is  due  for  the  most  part  to  the  scientific  education  of  the 
last  four  hundred  years.  In  things  pertaining  to  religion  and 
political  and  social  life,  we  are  not  so  different;  hence  it  is  more 
our  ideas  than  our  values  which  have  changed.  In  lesser  ways, 
the  popular  mind  shares  the  mediaeval  spirit,  so  that  the  old  no- 
tions of  astrology,  magic,  and  theosophy  dog  our  steps  in  the 
form  of  our  astrology,  our  numerology,  and  our  Christian 
Science.  It  is  chiefly  in  matters  of  faith  and  reason  that  we  differ 
from  the  Schoolmen;  we  have  neither  the  faith  nor  the  logic  that 


FUSION  OF  PAGANISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY    249 

once  was  theirs.  We  feel  that  we  have  emancipated  ourselves 
from  authority,  and  such  in  fact  is  the  case,  but  we  have  fallen 
under  the  spell  of  the  leader,  the  demagogue,  the  expert.  Hence 
the  advance  that  man  has  made  since  the  end  of  the  Xlllth  cen- 
tury is  but  a  fraction  of  what  it  is  commonly  believed  to  be. 

THE  FUSION  OF  PAGANISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY 

From  a  purely  cultural  point  of  view,  the  mediaeval  mind 
achieved  something  which  has  been  impossible  since:  it  brought 
about  a  fusion  of  pagan  and  Christian  thought  until  finally,  in 
the  system  of  Thomas  Aquinas,  it  raised  the  works  of  Aristotle 
to  the  authoritative  rank  of  the  books  of  the  Bible.  In  a  purely 
theoretical  way  it  may  be  said  that  this  indicates  the  ideal  of 
European  culture  and  that  we  are  indebted  to  such  a  Schoolman 
as  Aquinas  for  having  made  this  fusion.  The  first  period  of 
mediaeval  thought,  used  to  mysticism,  united  Platonism  with 
Christianity;  this  we  observe  in  St.  Augustine  and  Anselm.  The 
second  period  employed  Scholasticism  to  fuse  the  principles  of 
Aristotle  with  the  doctrines  of  the  Church.  The  difficulty  that 
was  found  with  this  pagan-Christian  fusion  was  that  it  involved 
too  much  logic  and  metaphysics  and  too  little  science  and  art. 
The  Church  adopted  Plato  and  Aristotle,  but  ignored  Pheidias 
and  Archimedes,  with  the  result  that,  when  the  modern  period 
set  in,  the  tendency  was  to  drop  Plato's  and  Aristotle's  syllogisms 
and  lay  hold  of  the  lever  of  Archimedes. 

We  of  the  modern  period  are  fond  of  referring  to  the  narrow- 
ness of  the  mediaeval  mind,  forgetful  of  the  fact  that  the  Fathers 
of  the  Church  and  the  Schoolmen  were  so  intent  upon  truth  as 
they  conceived  it  that  they  were  all  but  indifferent  to  its  sources, 
whether  pagan  or  Mohammedan.  When  the  humanizing  move- 
ment within  the  Church  was  inaugurated  by  the  Franciscan  and 
Dominican  Friars,  there  was  an  acute  demand  for  secular  knowl- 
edge which,  as  they  imagined,  had  to  come  from  Aristotle's 
scientific  works;  but  at  the  time  these  were  available  in  only  Arabic 
versions.  However,  the  hatred  of  Christian  for  Mohammedan 
did  not  deter  the  scholastic  Humanists  from  making  good  use 
of  the  Arabian  Aristotelianism  of  Avicenna  and  Averroes.  "  The 


250  SCHOLASTIC  CULTURE 

large  portion  of  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle,"  said  Roger  Bacon, 
"received  little  attention  either  on  account  of  the  concealment 
of  the  copies  of  his  works  and  their  rarity,  or  on  account  of  their 
difficulty  or  unpopularity,  or  on  account  of  the  wars  in  the  East, 
till  after  the  time  of  Mahomet,  when  Avicenna  and  Averroes 
and  others  recalled  to  the  light  of  full  exposition  the  philosophy 
of  Aristotle." 3  Now  the  rediscovery  of  Aristotle  in  the  Xlllth 
century  was  akin  to  the  rediscovery  of  Archimedes  in  the  XVIth 
century.  It  made  Scholasticism  a  complete  system  of  thought. 

AQUINAS  AND  ARISTOTLE 

It  was  the  work  of  Thomas  Aquinas  to  round  out  scholastic  ' 
culture,  as  it  had  been  the  office  of  Aristotle  to  summarize  the 
thought  of  Classicism.    Their  positions  in  history  are  analogous 
and  their  methods  akin;  both  alike  rationalized  the  knowledge 
of  their  respective  ages,  and  both  fell  short  in  the  same  particular 
—  in  astronomy  and  the  mechanical  conception  of  the  universe. 
It  is  true  that  Aristotle  accepted  the  idea  that  the  earth  is  round, 
but  he  still  maintained  that  it  is  the  center  of  the  universe,  and 
his  authority  in  this  matter  had  much  to  do  with  checking  the  ad- 
vance of  the  heliocentric  theory  surmised  by  the  Greeks  and  later 
established  by  Copernicus,    It  was  obvious  that  Aquinas  should 
follow  his  ancient  master  in  the  more  convenient  doctrine  of  as- 
tronomy.  But  this  shortcoming  in  the  doctrine  of  Aquinas  should 
not  blind  us  to  the  merit  of  his  intellectual  achievement,  which 
in  itself  was  gigantic.   For  this  great  master  of  scholastic  culture 
aspired  to  divide  the  whole  universe  into  the  realm  of  nature  and 
the  realm  of  grace.    In  dealing  with  the  natural  order,  he  pro- 
ceeded historically  and  united  the  principles  of  Greek  philosophy 
with  the  doctrines  of  Christianity.    His  method  of  theological 
procedure,  conducted  according  to  the  logic  of  sacred  history,  was 
such  as  to  relate  the  Creator  to  the  creature  and  thus  systematize 
the  spiritual  order.    The  result  is  that,  while  we  do  not  follow 
either  Aristotle  or  Aquinas  directly,  we  have  at  oiir  disposal  the 
classic  method  of  the  one  and  the  scholastic  method  of  the  other. 
These  we  may  use  as  historical  categories  or  forms  of  thought. 

8  Opus  Majus,  tr.  Burke,  p.  63. 


ROGER  BACON  251 

The  Schoolmen  went  to  Aristotle  for  the  purpose  of  getting 
back  to  nature  as  a  systematic  whole,  a  cosmos  worthy  of  the 
Creator.  But  with  more  patience  and  more  scientific  curiosity 
they  might  have  developed  their  own  philosophy  of  nature. 
Their  Gothic  architecture  in  its  decorations  revealed  their  in- 
terest in  foliage  and  plant  life  generally.  Roger  Bacon's  investi- 
gation of  optics  revealed  interest  in  and  insight  into  the  phe- 
nomena of  light  and  color.  The  pious  naturalism  of  St.  Francis 
is  only  another  example  of  interest  in  the  physical  world.  He 
who  felt  kinship  in  natural  phenomena  and  could  call  the  sun, 
the  wind,  and  fire  his  brother,  and  the  nioon,  the  rain,  the  earth 
his  sister  could  easily  have  been  a  guide  in  things  natural  as  well 
as  things  spiritual.  But  the  Church  needed  as  an  accompaniment 
for  its  spiritual  order  a  well-organized  mundane  system,  and  that 
it  found  ready-made  in  Aristotle.  If  he  had  conveyed  to  the 
Church  those  physical  conceptions  — the  mechanics  of  Archi- 
medes and  the  atomic  theory  of  Democritus  —  they  might  or 
might  not  have  been  accepted  on  the  authority  of  the  ancient 
master  who  supplied  the  mediaeval  mind  with  its  cosmic  con- 
ceptions. If  Aristotle  had  mastered  ancient  mechanics  and  the 
Schoolmen  had  adopted  his  views,  modern  science  would  have 
begun  at  least  two  centuries  earlier. 

ROGER  BACON 

The  science  enjoyed  by  mediaeval  culture  can  be  summed  up 
in  a  name  —  Roger  Bacon  (V.  1214-1294).  The  name  "Bacon" 
is  unfortunate  for  the  reason  that  it  is  commonly  associated  with 
that  of  Francis  Bacon,  who  appeared  three  and  a  half  centuries 
later  and  received  credit  for  the  introduction  of  intellectual  novel- 
ties peculiar  to  the  Bacon  of  the  XHIth  century.  If  Francis  had 
lived  in  the  days  of  Roger,  he  would  never  have  done  any  of  the 
latter  s  work  except  perhaps  Part  Three  of  the  Of  us  Majus,  which 
has  to  do  with  "  The  Study  of  Tongues."  If  Roger  had  lived  in 
the  age  of  Francis,  all  of  the  former's  glances  in  the  direction  of 
experimental  science  would  have  become  full  vision.  Roger 
availed  himself  of  such  opportunities  as  he  had  and  initiated  what 
may  well  be  called  the  scientific  method.  Francis,  who  affected 


252  SCHOLASTIC  CULTURE 

interest  in  science  and  spoke  enthusiastically  of  its  powers,  was 
not  the  type  of  mind  to  appreciate  actual  research  and  mathe- 
matical calculation.  The  two  men  differ  on  the  most  important 
point  in  modern  science —  the  application  of  mathematics  to  all 
problems.  Roger  accepted  this,  Francis  rejected  it.4  The  modern 
Bacon  refused  to  accept  Copernican  astronomy  and,  defective  as 
he  was  in  modern  physics  generally,  he  failed  as  well  to  measure 
up  to  the  new  ideal  in  politics  expressed  in  the  notion  of  jus 
natural?,  for  the  term  jus  in  the  sense  of  a  rational  principle  of 
rights  distinct  from  any  legal  code  does  not  appear  in  his  writ- 
ings.5 Hence,  when  comparisons  are  made,  all  the  advantage  is 
upon  the  side  of  the  Franciscan  Friar  of  Oxford.  The  Bacon 
whom  we  are  to  bear  in  mind  in  the  history  of  science  is  thus 
Roger,  not  Francis. 

The  intrinsic  importance  of  Roger  Bacon  is  likely  to  be  meas- 
ured on  the  basis  of  sympathy  for  his  spirit  and  age.  The  Catho- 
lic will  extol  his  greatness  and  make  of  him  a  doctor  mirabilis 
indeed;  the  Protestant,  already  pledged  to  Francis,  Lord  Bacon, 
will  be  inclined  to  regard  the  Franciscan  Friar  as  little  more  than 
a  curiosity.  When,  however,  we  take  a  historical  point  of  view 
we  find  it  difficult  to  deny  genuine  greatness  and  a  distinct  touch 
of  modernness  to  a  man  who,  in  the  heart  of  the  XHIth  century, 
was  dreaming  dreams  that  came  not  true  until  more  than  cen- 
turies had  passed.  In  paying  tribute  to  Fratri  Rogerio  dicto 
Bacon,  we  must  admit  his  limitations.  These  were  the  scho- 
lastic inhibitions  of  his  own  mind  and  the  ecclesiastical  prohibi- 
tions of  his  own  age.  He  was  not  allowed  to  investigate  beyond 
the  shadow  of  the  Church,  but  he  did  not  care  to.  He  accepted 
the  absolute  authority  of  the  Scriptures,  regarded  theology  as  the 
queen  of  the  sciences,  and  after  having  glorified,  in  his  Of  us 
Majus,  mathematics  and  experimental  science,  concludes  with  an 
attempted  proof  of  transubstantiation.  However,  if  we  are 
forced  to  consider  Bacon  the  child  of  his  age,  his  quasi-modern 
ideas  are  such  as  to  evince  the  advanced  intellectuality  of  his  age. 
What  matters  it  then  if  other  Oxonians  of  that  period,  Robert 
Grosseteste  and  Adam  Marsh,  were  equally  adept  in  mathematics 

4  Novum  Organum,  Lib.  II,  5. 

6  Lerminier,  Histoirc  du  Droit,  Int.  113. 


ROGER  BACON  253 

and  science  generally?  They  with  Bacon  speak  for  the  science 
of  those  cloistered  days. 

Roger  Bacon's  desire  to  reform  learning  within  the  Church  ex- 
pressed itself  in  Part  One  of  his  Of  us  Majus,  where  the  author 
considers  "The  Causes  of  Error."  These  are  four  in  number: 
submission  to  faulty  and  unworthy  authority,  the  influence  of 
custom,  popular  prejudice,  and  the  personal  concealment  of  ig- 
norance. Roger  Bacon  cites  these  intellectual  obstacles  to  truth- 
finding  with  no  such  flourish  of  rhetoric  as  one  finds  in  Francis 
Bacon's  discussion  of  the  four  idols,  the  famous  Idola.  Indeed  the 
earlier  Bacon  makes  mention  of  these  mental  faults  as  things 
that  have  long  been  known  and  finds  the  equivalent  of  them  in  a 
number  of  sacred  and  profane  writers,  whom  he  cites.  The  only 
possible  criticism  of  the  man  whose  mind  was  keen  enough  to 
discern  such  impediments  to  knowledge  is  that  his  mind  was 
not  so  strong  in  overcoming  them  in  the  case  of  his  own  think- 
ing. For  he  followed  authority  and  was  influenced  by  custom, 
although  he  was  not  so  susceptible  to  popular  prejudice  and 
personal  pride. 

The  chief  merits  of  this  XHIth-century  thinker  were  intellectual 
enthusiasm  and  scientific  imagination.  He  set  for  himself  as 
the  boundaries  of  his  intellect  the  walls  of  the  Church  and  the 
covers  of  the  Bible,  but  within  those  self-imposed  limits  his 
thought  intensified  itself.  He  accuses  the  men  of  his  day, 
the  moderni,  of  neglecting  mathematics,  which  he  regards  as  the 
gateway  to  the  sciences.  "For  the  things  of  this  world  can- 
not be  made  known/'  said  he,  "  without  a  knowledge  of  mathe- 
matics." Bacon  believed  in  the  application  of  mathematics  to 
astronomy,  or  "  theoretical  astrology,"  and  geography.  By  such 
means,  Bacon  pointed  out  the  error  in  the  contemporary  calendar 
and  calculated  that  it  had  gained  one  day  in  every  one  hundred 
and  thirty  years.  He  calculated  the  size  of  the  earth.  He 
accepted  the  Biblical  idea  of  the  rainbow  as  the  divine  prom- 
ise that  the  earth  would  never  again  undergo  a  deluge,  but 
then  proceeded  to  give  a  geometrical  explanation  of  the 
phenomenon. 

For  the  most  part,  Bacon's  science  was  of  a  wistful  character  or 
that  which  could  be  if  only  we  were  in  possession  of  the  proper 


SCHOLASTIC  CULTURE 

instruments.  He  made  a  thorough  study  of  optics  and  observed 
the  magnifying  power  of  lenses,  but  seems  to  have  had  no  tele- 
scope or  microscope.  "In  this  way,"  said  he,  "a  child  might 
appear  a  giant,  and  a  man  a  mountain.  ...  So  also  we  might 
cause  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars  in  appearance  to  descend  here 
below."  6  In  his  Of  us  Tertium,  Bacon  refers  to  the  possibilities 
of  gunpowder  and  seems  to  anticipate  the  invention  of  explosive 
shells  all  too  well  known  today.  In  like  manner,  he  mentions  the 
possibility  of  mechanical  boats  which  might  be  propelled  at 
tremendous  speed,  as  also  of  flying  machines.  But  these  things, 
as  in  the  parallel  case  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  are  spoken  of  on  the 
authority  of  imagination  rather  than  upon  the  basis  of  practical 
reason  and  inventive  power.  His  very  limitations  are  of  interest 
to  us  in  that  they  testify  to  the  state  of  that  culture  which  he 
shared  with  his  most  enlightened  contemporaries. 

DANTE 

The  vital  conception  of  mediaeval  culture,  or  Scholasticism, 
was  such  as  to  provide  an  adequate  place  for  the  poet  Dante.  It 
is  the  fashion  to  speak  of  this  supreme  poet  as  a  detached  figure 
or  a  personality  that  merely  happened  to  be  born,  but  any  inti- 
mate acquaintance  with  his  Dwina  Commedia  will  suffice  to  show 
that  his  verse  is  more  in  harmony  with  the  theology  than  with 
the  poetry  of  his  day.  At  the  risk  of  being  inaccurate  for  the  sake 
of  being  clear,  let  us  say  of  Dante's  poem  that  it  was  the  theology 
of  Thomas  Aquinas  set  to  music.  The  Gothic  architects  could 
make  art  out  of  Scholasticism,  Dante  was  able  to  create  stanzas 
out  of  Thomism.  Theology  encompasses  his  poetry,  but  within 
this  framework,  which  seems  never  to  have  irritated  him,  there  is 
the  pure  poetry  that  we  recognize  in  his  earlier  efforts,  when  as 
a  troubadour  or  first  of  the  sonneteers  he  wrote  more  lightly  of 
his  lady  love.  The  worldliness  of  this  orthodox  poet  appears 
throughout  his  poem  much  after  the  manner  of  naturalistic  deco- 
ration and  delicate  adornment  in  an  awful  Gothic  cathedral. 
This  appears  at  once  in  the  introduction  of  a  pagan  poet  rather 
than  the  Christian  Savior;  it  appears  again,  in  the 

6  Opus  Majus,  tr.  Burke,  p.  582. 


DANTE  255 

when  Dante  is  saved  by  a  contemporary  Florentine  woman  in- 
stead of  the  eternal  Virgin  Mary. 

The  realism,  or  naturalism,  of  Dante  is  likely  to  be  overlooked 
by  those  who  are  impressed  by  his  awful  vision  of  the  Catholic 
hereafter  in  an  Inferno,  Purgatory,  and  Paradise.  We  are  wont 
to  believe  that  the  poet  should  choose  poetical,  that  is,  beautiful 
and  impressive,  objects  to  supply  the  figurative  forms  for  his 
verse,  and  this  does  Dante  do  in  the  guise  of  earth  and  sky,  sea 
and  mountain,  river  and  tree;  each  of  the  three  books  ends  with 
the  word  "  stars."  But  not  these  alone,  for  his  imagination  leads 
him  into  regions  where  even  a  Shakespeare  would  have  difficulty 
in  poetizing  the  inconspicuous  and  repulsive  things  of  the  terres- 
trial order.  The  genius  of  Dante,  enamored  of  the  splendid 
things  in  life  —  angels,  princes,  and  beautiful  women  —  balks  not 
at  the  mention  of  the  gross  and  contemptible  —  cats,  dogs,  gnats, 
flies,  eels,  frogs,  mice,  lizards,  crabs.  Indeed,  in  one  of  the  most 
sublime  portions  of  the  Corn-media,  where  Beatrice  leads  the  poet 
into  Paradise,  Dante  cannot  avoid  a  rather  unlikely  comparison 
of  stars  and  fish. 

The  appearance  of  Beatrice  herself  is  likened  to  the  rising  of 
some  new  star  in  the  firmament.  When  her  face  beams  upon 
the  skies,  the  other  celestial  orbs,  entranced  by  her  beauty,  flock 
about  her  and  in  full  chorus  exclaim,  "  Behold  one  who  will  in- 
crease our  loves."  This  is  delicious  boldness  on  the  part  of  the 
bard  and  certainly  not  bad  poetry.  But  not  content  with  this 
celestial  similitude,  Dante  presses  a  very  earthly  analogy,  for  he 
likens  the  celestial  enthusiasm  of  the  stars  to  the  hunger  of  fish 
which  are  wont  to  swarm  to  some  likely  spot  when  any  one  with 
food  appears  on  the  shore  of  a  lake.7  Dante's  naturalism  goes 
even  further.  He  beholds  the  redeemed  souls  leaving  the  last 
circle  of  Purgatory  and  preparing  to  enter  Paradise.  They  rush 
together  and  greet  one  another  with  a  holy  kiss.  In  the  poet's 
fancy,  this  assembling  and  greeting  seems  like  a  group  of  ants 
coming  together  and  rubbing  muzzle  to  muzzle.8  All  in  all, 
these  touches  of  realism  in  our  sense  of  the  term  indicate  both 
the  penetrating  intuitions  of  a  Xlllth-century  Dante  and  the 
century's  longing  for  nature.  However,  Dante  did  not  emanci- 

7  Paradiso,  V,  97-102.  8  Purgatorio,  XXVI,  25-30. 


256  SCHOLASTIC  CULTURE 

pate  himself  from  Scholasticism  nor  did  he  for  a  moment  wish  to; 
what  he  did  was  to  make  a  pilgrimage  through  the  mediaeval 
State  and  Church  and  School.  It  is  the  account  o£  this  that  we 
have  in  the  form  of  the  Divine  Comedy.  But  the  sun  of  modern 
thought  was  beginning  to  shine  even  then,  with  the  result  that  it 
is  in  a  formal  way  only  that  we  can  refer  to  Dante  as  mediaeval. 
He  wrote  in  a  modern  language  rather  than  in  Latin,  and  his 
six-hundred-year-old  poem  is  readable  to  the  modern  citizen  of 
Florence.  Dante  was  exceptional,  different,  modern;  we  return 
to  stated  Scholasticism  when  we  refer  to  its  realism. 

THE  OLD  SCHOLASTICISM  AND  THE  NEW 

We  were  not  specially  concerned  with  the  scholastic  quarrel 
between  the  Realists  and  Nominalists  until  we  discovered  that 
we,  too,  have  our  modern  Realism  in  the  social  sciences,  our 
Nominalism  in  egoistic  rebellions.   Just  as  little  and  just  as  much 
are  we  interested  in  the  famous  dispute  between  the  Franciscans 
and  Dominicans  on  the  subject,  "  Is  the  good  good  because  God 
wills  it,  or  does  God  will  it  because  it  is  good?  "    Theologically 
we  may  be  free  from  such  a  dialectical  entanglement,  but  psy- 
chologically we  are  highly  implicated.    This  is  because  the  view 
taken  by  the  Franciscans  exalts  the  will  to  the  extremes  of  volun- 
tarism and  irrationalism,  while  the  more  staid  conception  of  the 
Dominicans  lifts  the  process  of  cognition  afeove  the  sphere  of 
action.   Let  every  one  be  fully  persuaded  in  his  own  mind  which 
he  prizes  more  highly  —  his  analyzing,  defining  intellect  or  his 
active,  creative  will    List  some  of  your  intellectualists  and  you 
will  find  Kapila  of  the  Sankhyam  school  in  old  India,  Socrates, 
Plato,  Spinoza,  Hegel,  and  idealists  generally.     Make  out  a 
parallel  list  and  there  appear  the  names  of  Patanjali  of  the 
ancient  Hindu  Yogins,  perhaps  Aristotle,  St.  Augustine,  Duns 
Scotus,  Kant,  Schopenhauer,  and  the  Pragmatists.    It  was  Duns 
Scotus  (c.  1265-1308),  the  Franciscan  monk  arjd  professor  of 
theology  at  Oxford  and  Paris,  who  precipitated  this  XHIth- 
century  problem.    It  seemed  to  him  that  the  personality  and 
freedom  of  man  were  at  stake. 
Duns  Scotus,  like  Kant,  was  intent  upon  saving  free  will  in 


THE  OLD  SCHOLASTICISM  AND  THE  NEW 

both  God  and  man.  He  desired  to  exalt  omnipotence  above  fate 
and  necessity.  It  would  have  been  possible,  he  argued,  for  God 
to  have  created  a  different  kind  of  world  or  no  world  at  all. 
"  The  will  is  superior  to  the  intellect  —  voluntas  superior  est  in- 
tdlectu."  In  the  sublime  instance  of  the  Divine  Being,  it  is  well 
known,  argues  this  humanistic  Franciscan,  that  God  revised  the 
law  of  Moses  in  favor  of  the  law  of  Christ;  and  He  has  as  much 
authority  to  exempt  us  from  the  moral  law  that  now  is,  in  favor 
of  some  future  law.  Scotus  saw  this  in  the  light  of  the  Church's 
indulgences,  but  we  may  choose  to  regard  it  as  a  futuristic  way  of 
passing  from  old  duties  to  new  obligations.  In  a  certain  sense, 
the  futurism  of  Ibsen  and  Nietzsche  is  implied  by  the  volun- 
tarism of  this  bold  Franciscan. 

If  we  are  timid,  reactionary,  conservative,  we  will  cling  to  our 
Thomism  and  repose  in  the  idea  that  the  great  issues  of  life  are 
settled.  If  we  are  bold,  radical,  and  progressive,  we  will  rejoice 
in  our  Scotism  with  its  supremacy  of  the  will.  In  the  historic 
case  of  Duns  Scotus,  while  he  himself  escaped  the  charge  of 
heresy  but  was  never  canonized,  the  way  for  the  future  was  cut. 
The  Deity  was  allowed  to  provide  a  new  form  of  religious  life 
for  mankind,  while  man  himself  received  thereby  the  privilege 
of  being  free  to  choose  among  both  doctrines  and  acts.  Scotus 
himself  did  not  fall  back  into  the  formalism  of  Realism  and 
Nominalism,  since  his  thought  was  too  energetic  for  such  pas- 
sivity. As  a  Schoolman  he  had  to  express  himself  in  the  termi- 
nology of  his  time;  hence  he  calls  Realism  and  regular  ism  by  the 
name  of  quidditas,  reserving  the  name  of  haecceitas  for  the  in- 
dividualist. Our  Quidditati  are  the  regulars,  the  stand-patters; 
our  Haecceitati  are  the  individualists,  the  non-conformists.  No 
matter  which  party  is  in  the  right,  the  haecceitatism  of  Duns 
Scotus  was  modernistic.  It  prepared  the  way  for  the  vehicle  of 
another  of  those  delightfully  human  Franciscans  —  William  of 
Occam  (  ?  -c.  1349).  His  was  a  living  Nominalism  that  led 
mankind  into  the  modern  world. 

In  leaving  Scholasticism  behind  us,  it  will  be  well  to  repeat 
what  we  said  at  the  beginning  —  that  Scholasticism  is  more  of  a 
mental  state  than  a  historical  period.  Intellectual  formalism, 
for  that  is  what  it  is  essentially,  has  long  been  in  the  world  and 

S.T.— 18 


258  SCHOLASTIC  CULTURE 

shows  a  tendency  to  continue.  Is  there  any  Scholasticism  at  the 
present  time?  Certainly  not  in  the  mediaeval  sense  since  we  re- 
joice in  different  methods,  yet  our  Scientism  is  not  wholly  innocent 
o£  scholastic  tone.  So  pronounced  is  this  that  Bergson  laments 
the  rise  of  "  a  certain  new  Scholasticism  that  has  grown  up  dur- 
ing the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  around  the  physics 
of  Galileo  as  the  old  Scholasticism  grew  up  around  Aristotle."  9 

9  Creative  Evolution,  tr.  Mitchell,  p.  37°- 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  EMERGENCE  OF  THE 
MODERN  MIND 


ARE  WE  MODERN? 

A  1  WE  OF  THIS  AGE  "  MODERN  "  ?  IF  SO,  WHAT  DO  WE  MEAN  BY 
that  term?  These  look  like  simple  questions  and  the 
answers  to  them  appear  forthcoming,  but  such  is  hardly 
the  case.  We  cannot  apply  the  term  "  modern,"  still  less  relish  it, 
until  we  have  identified  and  analyzed  it.  The  intellectual  history 
of  Europe  shows  us  that  the  term  was  used  in  the  Vlth  century  by 
Cassidorus  and  that  it  appears  here  and  there  in  the  writings  of  the 
Schoolmen,  as  Albertus  Magnus  and  Roger  Bacon.  The  idea  of 
modernity  was  vivid  in  the  period  of  the  Renaissance  and  the 
Reformation,  although  both  artist  and  religionist  revealed  a  tend- 
ency to  revert  to  the  past  —  to  paganism,  to  primitive  Christianity. 
The  contrast  between  ancient  and  modern  was  brought  out  in 
the  French  literature  of  the  XVIIth  century  in  the  famous  quarrel 
between  les  anciens  and  les  modernes,  conducted  upon  the  alleged 
superiority  of  the  modern  over  the  ancient  poet  and  vice  versa; 
a  quarrel  between  Fontenelle  and  Boileau,  to  mention  only  the 
outstanding  figures  involved  therein.  The  distinction  between 
ancient  and  modern  was  made  clear  psychologically  by  Schiller 
in  his  essay  On  Naive  and  Sentimental  Poetry  (1795)  .  In  the  year 
1800,  Friedrich  Schlegel  made  this  distinction  the  basis  of  the 
difference  between  the  ancient  Classicist  and  the  modern  Ro- 
manticist. Of  course,  the  chronological  interval  between  ancient 
Greece  and  modern  Europe  had  not  escaped  anybody's  attention, 
but  the  inward  differences  between  the  two  cultures  had  not 
been  appreciated. 

We  are  different  from  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  but  in  what 
ways  ?  We  refer  to  them  as  the  "  ancients,"  but  as  an  accurate 
statement  of  fact  the  word  "  moderns  "  seems  out  of  place  with 
us.  Were  not  the  Greeks  the  moderns  in  their  youthfulness,  and 
are  not  we  in  our  maturity  the  true  ancients?  As  far  back  as  the 


2<5o     THE  EMERGENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  MIND 

days  of  Priscian  (Vlth  century),  something  of  this  sort  was  sug- 
gested in  connection  with  the  idea  that  knowledge  is  such  a  steady 
growth  as  to  provide  for  the  accumulation  of  wisdom.  Roger 
Bacon  furthered  the  idea  when  he  said,  "  Priscian  says  .  .  .  that 
there  is  no  perfection  in  human  discoveries  and  adds,  'the 
younger  the  investigators  the  more  acute,'  because  the  younger, 
that  is  these  of  a  later  age,  in  the  progress  of  time  possess  the 
labors  of  their  predecessors."  x  But  these  mediaevalists  only  im- 
plied what  was  stated  in  the  early  part  of  the  modern  period, 
as  we  must  call  it,  by  Giordiano  Bruno  (c.  1550-1600)  and 
Francis  Bacon  (1561-1626).  These  moderns,  as  we  are  bound  to 
call  them,  asserted  that  in  reality  we  are  the  ancients.  All  four 
thinkers  would  convey  the  impression  that  a  present  age,  Vlth 
or  XHIth,  XVIth  or  XVIIth  century,  is  the  wisest  because  it 
represents  the  sum  total  of  knowledge  up  to  that  time.  We  are 
not  so  certain  of  that,  but  we  are  reasonably  satisfied  to  apply 
the  term  modern  to  ourselves  and  our  predecessors  in  the  last 
five  hundred  years. 

This  introduces  a  second  question:  when  and  where  did 
modernity  begin?  In  attempting  an  answer,  we  must  realize  that 
history  as  a  force  moves  forward  in  time  and  is  written  back- 
ward as  a  record.  Time  is  an  irreversible  process,  hence  we  can 
only  think  back  and  cannot  go  back  to  an  earlier  period.  The 
historical  process  of  thinking  back  may  lead  to  an  occasional 
illusion.  We  might  imagine  Homer  as  saying,  "  I  am  an  ancient 
poet ";  or  fancy  that  Dante  might  refer  to  himself  as  a  "  medi- 
aeval bard  "  in  the  way  that  Goethe  would  surely  have  referred 
to  himself  as  a  "  modern  maker  of  verses."  But  doubtless  Homer 
and  Dante  in  their  respective  ages  thought  o£  themselves  as  quite 
up-to-date,  or  as  moderns  in  their  own  world.  Furthermore,  in 
ages  to  come,  these  distinctions  that  we  make  so  easily,  so  con- 
fidently, may  be  blotted  out  by  the  historians  of  the  far-flung 
future.  But  let  us  see  if  we  can  fixate  modernity  in  time  and 
locate  it  in  space. 

The  geographical  location  of  modernity  may  be  settled  at  once 
by  saying  "  Europe."  Asia  has  had  a  much  longer  history,  but 
it  is  not  broken  up  into  a  threefold  division  such  as  we  see  in  the 

1  Opus  Majus,  tr.  Burke,  p.  15, 


FEATURES  OF  MODERN  THOUGHT          26i 

western  world.  From  our  point  of  view,  all  of  Asia,  except 
where  Occidentals  have  modernized  it,  belongs  to  the  ancient 
order.  America,  on  the  other  side  of  the  world,  has  nothing  but 
modern  history;  its  mediaevalism  and  antiquity  do  not  count, 
If,  now,  we  choose  to  be  more  precise,  we  might  locate  the  be- 
ginning of  modernity  at  the  place  where  antiquity  left  off  —  in 
Italy.  This  would  identify  the  inception  of  the  modern  period 
with  the  Italian  Renaissance  and  might  convey  the  impression 
that  our  age  at  its  beginning  was  only  a  revived  antiquity,  a 
rebirth  of  some  sort,  a  scientific  and  artistic  revival.  This  is  an 
impression  we  desire  to  avoid,  although  in  doing  so  we  would 
not  for  a  moment  try  to  unseat  the  Renaissance  from  its  lofty 
position.  What  we  desire  to  point  out  is  that  the  mediaevals  ap- 
proached the  Renaissance  and  that  the  true  moderns  left  it  behind, 
so  that  this  little  transitional  period  betrays  the  shade  of  Scho- 
lasticism on  the  one  side  and  the  light  of  modern  science  on 
the  other. 


FEATURES  OF  MODERN  THOUGHT 

Why  were  not  the  Schoolmen  the  moderni,  as  they  called  them- 
selves ?  Why  did  not  the  Renaissance  begin  in  the  Xlllth  century, 
when  Europe  was  building  its  Gothic  cathedrals  and  founding 
its  universities?  Why  could  not  Dante  have  been  the  aesthetic 
prophet  and  Roger  Bacon  the  scientific  guide?  Doubtless  there 
were  inherent  reasons  for  the  delay  in  inaugurating  the  modern 
era,  but  there  was  also  an  exterior  one  —  the  XI Vth  century.  By 
the  time  it  had  arrived,  the  mediaeval  mind  had  exhausted  all 
its  resources.  The  age  had  its  Niccolo  Pisano  and  Petrarch,  its 
Cimabue  and  Giotto.  But  what  we  like  to  call  the  stream  of 
history  did  not  flow  smoothly  from  period  to  period.  It  tarried  a 
century  between  the  end  of  Scholasticism  and  the  beginning 
of  the  Renaissance  and  experienced  both  plague  and  battle,  the 
Black  Death  and  the  Hundred  Years'  War.  But  the  presence  of 
exhaustion,  disease,  and  conflict  was  no  more  conspicuous  than 
the  absence  of  things  that  were  to  make  up  the  Renaissance. 
Something  positive  and  new  was  needed. 

The  general  features  of  the  modern  movement  were  the  Italian 


262     THE  EMERGENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  MIND 

Renaissance  and  the  German  Reformation.  Associated  with  these 
were  the  Revival  of  Learning  and  Humanism.  These  were  ex- 
pressions of  the  new  movement  and  they  operated  in  the  capacity 
of  both  cause  and  effect.  They  were  conditions  without  which 
modernity  could  not  have  come  into  existence.  If  these  over- 
lapping and  interweaving  movements  confuse  us,  they  were  not 
any  clearer  to  those  who  lived  through  them.  The  minds  of  those 
days  were  aware  that  something  was  going  on  about  them,  the 
way  people  of  today  are  sensible  of  what  is  happening  in  con- 
nection with  Evolution,  Relativity,  Radio,  Aircraft,  and  the 
League  of  Nations.  They,  like  us,  appreciated  what  they  did  not 
understand,  and  probably  they  were  inclined  to  say  in  their  own 
way,  "  We  live  in  a  great  age." 

The  ingredients  of  the  new  movement  so  European  in  tone 
had  still  something  oriental  about  them.  This  appears  in  the 
Chinese  art  of  paper-making,  the  manufacture  of  gunpowder, 
and  the  art  of  printing.  The  same  oriental  leaning  appears  in  the 
zeal  for  navigation,  which  led  to  voyages  on  the  sea,  as  the 
crusades  had  led  to  journeys  eastward  by  land,  and  it  was  for 
the  purpose  of  reaching  the  East  by  a  long  westward  passage 
that  Columbus  set  forth.  The  Near  East  influenced  the  new 
movement  without  meaning  to,  when  Constantinople  fell  into 
the  hands  of  the  Turks,  whereby  the  more  scholarly  of  the  one- 
time Christian  population  rushed  to  Italy  bearing  Greek  manu- 
scripts, although  Greek  scholars  had  come  to  Florence  in  1438,  or 
fifteen  years  before  the  fall  of  the  Eastern  Empire.  The  old 
European  world  figured  in  the  new  enterprise.  The  physics  of 
Archimedes  displaced  the  metaphysics  of  Aristotle  and  the  geo- 
graphical or  astronomical  basis  upon  which  circumnavigating 
voyages  were  made  was  the  old  Greek  idea  that  the  earth  is  round. 
Copernican  astronomy  did  not  appear  until  the  middle  of  the 
next  century,  or  1543,  and  was  not  made  an  issue  until  Galileo 
tried  to  popularize  it  and  Kepler  had  reduced  it  to  the  principles 
of  natural  law.  It  was  in  1609  that  Kepler  published  his  Astrono- 
mia  Nova,  a  quarter  of  a  century  later  that  Galileo  was  im- 
prisoned for  insisting  upon  his  vision  of  the  new  heavens. 

The  early  modern  or  pre-modern  mind  was  furnished  for  its 
work  by  art  and  religion,  the  products  of  Italy  and  Germany 


THE  ART  OF  PRINTING 

expressed  in  the  systematic  historical  form  of  movements  —  the 
Renaissance  and  the  Reformation.  Modernity  as  such  was  des- 
tined to  be  a  much  sterner  matter,  based  upon  physics  and  politics. 
But  the  sentiment  of  early  modernity,  the  tone  of  the  age  in 
which  we  ourselves  are  living  came  forth  in  a  genial  manner, 
breathing  the  air  of  freedom  due  to  the  emancipation  of  the 
intellect  and  senses.  Moreover,  it  was  necessary  for  the  modern 
age  to  be  financed.  Greek  culture  had  been  made  possible  by 
the  profits  of  slave  labor;  the  enlightenment  that  began  in  the 
XlXth  century  followed  upon  the  wealth  afforded  by  the  Indus- 
trial Revolution;  the  Renaissance  had  its  purse  in  the  wealth  of 
the  Indies  that  followed  upon  voyages  of  discovery.  But  the  new 
movement  itself  can  be  identified  in  the  simple  form  of  books 
and  pictures,  fruits  of  the  new  arts  of  printing  and  painting. 

THE  ART  OF  PRINTING 

The  modern  mind,  as  something  public  and  democratic  as 
distinguished  from  private  and  aristocratic,  was  manufactured 
by  the  printing  press.  At  'the  present  time,  reading  is  almost 
coterminous  with  living,  so  that  we  are  inclined  to  take  from  the 
printed  page  what  otherwise  might  be  acquired  by  our  own 
powers  of  attention  and  memory.  The  "  Press  "  in  the  form  of 
newspaper,  magazine,  and  book  makes  our  modern  existence 
extensive,  but  this  often  at  the  expense  of  the  intensive  and  origi- 
nal. We  cannot  think  or  live  without  "  reading  matter,"  as  we 
call  it.  But  this  was  not  the  case  five  hundred  years  ago,  when 
the  modern  mind  was  beginning  to  emerge  from  Scholasticism. 
The  reading  matter  with  which  in  some  measure  we  could  dis- 
pense was  the  very  thing  needed  to  nourish  the  modern  spirit; 
hence  the  importance  of  the  first  printing  press.  When,  there- 
fore, we  are  calling  the  restricted  roll  of  pioneer  names  and  are 
making  mention  of  Columbus  and  Copernicus,  Leonardo  da 
Vinci  and  Martin  Luther,  we  should  not  omit  the  name  of 
Johan  Gansfleisch,  who  is  better  known  by  his  patrician  name  of 
Gutenberg. 

Gutenberg's  printing  press^  'set  in  operation  at  Mainz  about 
1450,  deserves  to  be  compared  in  point  of  effect  with  Watt's 


264     THE  EMERGENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  MIND 

steam  engine  of  some  three  hundred  years  later.  Prior  to  the 
Gutenberg  press  was  the  xylography,  or  wood-printing,  of  Lau- 
rens  Janszoon  Coster  in  Haarlem,  and  prior  to  this  noted  Hol- 
lander the  Chinese  with  the  block-and-page  printing  or  stamp- 
ing. Like  Gutenberg,  who  borrowed  from  him,  Coster  used 
an  alphabetical  form  of  printing  in  the  form  of  separate  letters 
made  first  of  wood,  then  of  metal;  but  the  combination  of 
alphabetical  type  and  a  printing  press  was  the  work  of  the  great 
Gutenberg.  There  was  nothing  amateurish  in  the  mind  of  this 
first  printer  nor  did  he  regard  his  new  machine  as  a  toy.  As 
soon  as  its  few  simple  parts  were  assembled,  he  made  it  "  strike 
off"  none  other  work  than  the  Bible!  This  was  the  Latin  ver- 
sion and  it  made  its  appearance  at  about  the  time  Constantinople 
was  falling  and  its  Greek  scholars  were  flying  to  Italy  with  those 
Greek  manuscripts  about  which  we  hear  so  much. 

The  art  of  printing  was  a  Germanic  affair  with  its  centers  of 
activity  in  Mainz  and  Strassburg,  as  also  Haarlem,  just  as  the  art 
of  painting  was  an  Italian  matter  located  at  Florence,  Venice, 
and  Milan.  But  there  were  printers  in  Italy  also  before  the 
great  masters  had  touched  their  canvases.  William  Caxton  gave 
England  the  typographical  art  when,  in  1477,  he  printed  Dictes 
and  Notable  Wise  Sayings  of  the  Philosophers.  The  multiplica- 
tion of  presses  and  the  spread  of  printed  works  were  extraordi- 
nary. This  we  may  gather  from  the  work  of  modern  bibliog- 
raphers who  have  catalogued  the  Incunabula,  or  Cradle  Works, 
which  include  the  books  printed  before  the  year  1500.  The  num- 
ber of  Incunabula  enumerated  by  Hain  in  his  Repertorium 
Bibliographicum  (1828-1838)  was  16,299,  but  it  is  probable  that 
a  complete  list  would  increase  this  to  20,000.  This  typographical 
activity  was  checked  somewhat  by  conflicts  peculiar  to  the 
Reformation  and  was  retarded  by  the  Civil  War  in  England  as 
well  as  by  the  Restoration,  so  that  the  press  as  a  machine  under- 
went little  improvement  until  two  centuries  had  passed,  when  it 
was  remodeled  by  the  Dutch  mechanic  Willem  Jansen  Blaeu. 
But  the  original  press,  as  comparable  to  a  modern  high-speed 
rotary  printing  machine  as  a  wheelbarrow  to  an  automobile,  had 
done  its  work.  It  was  indeed  a  "  cradle  "  for  infant  books,  and 
now  its  children  overrun  the  whole  earth. 


"  MOSES."    MICHELANGELO 


DETAIL  FROM  THE  "  LAST  SUPPER."    LEONARDO  DA  VINCI 
(facing  page  265} 


MODERN  PAINTING 


MODERN  PAINTING 


265 


But  there  were  pictures  as  well  as  books,  and  the  art  of  paint- 
ing served  to  free  the  senses  in  the  way  that  the  art  of  printing 
had  released  the  intellect.  The  way  for  the  proud  parade  of 
Italian  painters  had  been  prepared  in  the  XHIth  century  by  the 
frescoes  of  Cimabue  and  Giotto.  It  was  not  to  end  until  it  had 
seen  the  appearance  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci's  Last  Supper  on  the 
wall  of  the  Dominican  convent  of  Santa  Maria  delle  Gracie  in 
Milan,  Michelangelo's  frescoes  on  the  ceiling  of  the  Sistine 
Chapel,  and  Raphael's  School  of  Athens  and  other  frescoes  in 
the  Vatican.  While  it  is  here  inconvenient  to  give  an  account 
of  Italian  painting,  it  is  refreshing  to  recall  the  names  of  those 
who  made  the  Italian  Renaissance  immortal  in  beauty.  In 
Florence  we  see  the  work  of  Masaccio,  Filippo  Lippi,  Botticelli, 
Verrocchio,  Ghirlandajo,  Lorenzo  di  Credi,  Piero  di  Cosimo,  and 
others.  In  Venice  and  the  north  we  have  another  list  including 
Mantegna,  the  Vivarini,  the  Bellini,  Giorgione,  Palma  Vecchio, 
Lorenzo  Lotto,  and  Titian.  To  these  names  must  be  added  those 
of  Durer  and  Holbein  in  Germany,  Rembrandt  and  Frans  Hals 
in  Holland,  Rubens  and  Van  Dyck  in  Flanders,  Murillo  and 
Velasquez  in  Spain.  Their  works  are  evidence  that  Europe  was 
living  in  a  new  world,  although  perhaps  a  world  it  did  not  fully 
understand. 

It  would  be  grievously  misleading  if  we  pressed  the  analogy 
between  printing  and  painting  to  the  point  of  styling  the  works 
of  the  old  masters  as  incunabula  in  art,  and  even  with  the 
Italian  primitives  any  such  suggestion  of  imperfection  would  be 
out  of  place.  In  science  it  is  quite  natural  to  advance  step  by 
step  from  a  stage  of  lesser  to  greater  enlightenment,  since  science 
corrects  its  errors,  overcomes  its  shortcomings,  and  advances  to 
the  new  that  is  believed  true.  But  in  art  there  is  no  such  evolu- 
tion. Each  age  completes  its  work  and  lets  another  begin  de 
novo,  hence  we  cannot  consider  Renaissance  art  superior  to 
Gothic  architecture;  still  less  can  we  regard  the  modern  painter 
as  more  "  advanced  "  than  the  old  artist.  Nevertheless  we  are 
privileged  to  make  comments  upon  old  canvases  for  the  pur- 
pose of  placing  ourselves  in  a  position  properly  appreciative. 


266     THE  EMERGENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  MIND 

Something  by  way  o£  criticism  has  been  indicated  already  by  our 
impromptu  distinction  between  the  old  "  artist "  and  the  modern 
*  painter." 

In  making  this  general  distinction,  we  may  observe  further  that 
the  artist  of  the  older  school  seemed  to  be  more  interested  in 
what  he  painted  than  the  way  in  which  he  executed  his  work, 
or  in  subject  matter  rather  than  technical  treatment.  Technique 
there  was  as  one  sees  in  Florentine  drawing  and  Venetian  color- 
ing, technique  of  a  high  order  in  the  modeling  of  Michelangelo, 
the  composition  evident  upon  a  canvas  by  Raphael,  and  both 
lighting  and  perspective  in  the  superb  art  of  Leonardo.  Like- 
wise was  there  some  indifference  to  subject  matter  with  Rem- 
brandt But  for  the  most  part  the  artist  of  the  Renaissance  was 
not  so  given  up  to  mere  brushwork  that  he  felt  free  to  ignore 
the  merits  of  the  object  his  brush  was  to  place  upon  the  canvas. 
That  is  a  tendency  distinctly  modern  in  our  sense  of  that  term 
and  it  is  impossible  to  think  of  any  one  of  the  old  masters  being 
inspired  by  the  aesthetical  ideal  of  "no  representation  of  the 
recognizable."  Perhaps  these  old  masters  were  not  "  painters," 
but  merely  "  illustrators,"  just  as  their  ideal  of  aesthetics  was  not 
such  as  to  have  them  make  painting  an  absolute  art.  But  we 
may  be  thankful  that  they  gave  full  expression  to  their  "  medi- 
aevalism"  four  hundred  years  before  painting  passed  into  the 
hands  of  the  Naturalists  and  Impressionists,  the  Cubists  and 
Futurists.  Their  paintings  did  lack  life  and  atmosphere,  but  this 
is  atoned  for  by  the  authentic  presence  of  grace  and  dignity. 

THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE 

I£  we  wish  to  feel  the  difference  between  the  Renaissance  and 
modernity,  we  need  only  distinguish  between  art  and  science. 
If  we  would  stipulate  more  exactly,  we  can  attribute  the  art  of 
painting  to  the  one  and  the  science  of  physics  to  the  other,  for 
the  Renaissance  gave  us  beautiful  canvases,  modernity  presented 
us  with  maps,  charts,  and  formulas.  There  was  some  science 
in  the  earlier  period  and  some  art  in  the  later  one,  but  the  over- 
lapping of  these  areas  cannot  obscure  the  distinction  between 
them.  The  combination  o£  the  two  enterprises  is  found  best  in 


THE  GERMAN  REFORMATION  267 

the  brain  of  that  great  Renaissance  individual  —  Leonardo  da 
Vinci  (1452-1519).  He  produced  no  work  comparable  to  New- 
ton's Principia,  but  he  wrote  a  notebook  which  in  a  way  might 
be  compared  with  the  Opus  Majus  o£  Roger  Bacon  before  him. 
Both  thinkers,  scholastic  and  renascent,  betray  a  wistfulness; 
neither  is  in  a  mood  or  a  position  to  go  to  work  in  a  distinctly 
modern  way. 

This  enthusiasm  for  the  new  age  not  yet  defined  or  developed 
is  shown  by  Rabelais  (1490-1553),  who  sensed  the  age  and  sought 
to  interpret  its  spirit.  This  was  expressed  so  deftly  in  "  Gar- 
gantua's  "  letter  to  his  son,  "  Pantagruel,"  that  his  words  are 
worth  quoting  at  some  length: 

"  The  age  was  still  dark  and  smacking  of  the  unhappiness  and 
calamity  of  the  Goths,  who  had  destroyed  all  good  literature;  but 
by  the  grace  of  God  light  and  dignity  has  in  my  time  been  re- 
stored to  Letters,  and  now  I  see  therein  such  improvement  that 
at  present  I  would  hardly  be  admitted  to  the  first  class  of  primary 
pupils,  I  who  in  my  prime  was  not  unjustly  regarded  as  the 
wisest  man  of  the  age.  .  .  .  The  whole  world  is  full  of  savants, 
learned  teachers,  ample  libraries,  so  that  it  seems  to  me  that  not 
even  in  the  time  of  Plato,  Cicero,  nor  Papinian  was  there  such 
facility  for  study  as  one  sees  now.  '  Now  all  studies  are  restored, 
the  languages  installed:  Greek  without  which  it  is  shameful  for 
a  man  to  call  himself  a  scholar,  Hebrew,  Chaldean,  Latin;  these 
exact  and  elegant  printed  books  invented  in  my  time  by  divine 
inspiration  just  as,  on  the  other  hand,  artillery  by  diabolical 
suggestion."  2 

THE  GERMAN  REFORMATION 

The  German  Reformation  differed  from  the  Italian  Renais- 
sance in  the  sense  that  the  religious  movement  was  destined  to 
become  an  integral  part  of  modern  life,  while  the  artistic  one 
was  to  lead  to  something  less  effulgent  and  then  itself  subside. 
From  the  Protestant  point  of  view,  the  Reformation  was  in- 
tended originally  to  correct  abuses  in  the  Church,  primarily  the 
sale  of  indulgences.  From  the  Catholic  standpoint,  such  a  cor- 
2  Pantagruel  (1532),  Ch.  VIII. 


268     THE  EMERGENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  MIND 

rcction  was  thoroughly  justified  on  moral  grounds.  The  con- 
sistent Catholic  has  no  defense  of  the  corruption  that  had  crept 
into  the  Church.  The  only  question  in  the  Catholic  mind  is 
whether  such  a  moral  motive  should  have  led  to  revolt  and 
schism.3  The  effect  seems  indeed  much  greater  than  the  cause. 
The  early  Protestant  seemed  to  seek  revision  of  dogma  as  well 
as  reformation  of  morals  within  the  Church,  but  it  is  a  question 
whether  the  Protestant  was  any  more  liberal  than  the  conserva- 
tive he  was  opposing.  Was  Calvin  any  more  agreeable  to  the 
modern  heart  than  Aquinas  had  been  to  the  mediaeval  spirit? 
The  disinterested  observer  is  likely  to  conclude  that  the  change 
effected  by  Protestantism  was  not  the  change  from  authority  to 
freedom,  but  the  change  from  the  authority  of  the  Church  to 
that  of  the  Bible.  It  is  significant  to  observe  at  this  point  that  it 
was  the  Germans  who  effected  this  change.  A  German  printer 
inaugurated  his  art  by  printing  the  Bible,  a  German  translated 
the  Bible  for  the  Reformation,  and  it  was  German  scholarship 
that,  by  means  of  a  critical  study  of  the  Scriptures,  began  to  lead 
us  away  from  blind  bibliolatry.  The  neutral  observer  is  likely 
to  conclude,  moreover,  that  Protestantism,  as  we  still  call  it,  was 
not  due  to  any  isolated  cause  in  Christendom,  but  was  only  a 
phase  of  the  whole  movement  toward  modernity. 

So  much  has  been  written  about  the  ecclesiastical  side  of  the 
Reformation  and  so  little  about  the  economic  aspect  of  the  move- 
ment that  it  may  be  well  to  consider  how  the  reformer  affected 
the  shop  as  well  as  the  Church.  The  usual  causes  of  the  Refor- 
mation have  been  ascribed  to  something  ethical  and  intellectual  in 
connection  with  the  conduct  and  thought  of  the  XVIth  century. 
Thus  it  is  assumed  that  the  Reformation  arose  as  a  desire  to  cor- 
rect moral  abuses  and  provide  for  private  judgment,  both  matters 
of  conscience.  Doubtless  there  was  need  of  these  two  improve- 
ments throughout  all  Christendom,  but  the  movement  sprang 
from  something  more  than  the  desire  for  better  living  and  clearer 
thinking.  On  the  ethical  side  of  the  question,  the  history  of  the 
papacy  suggests  that  the  Church  was  most  worldly  two  centuries 
before  the  Reformation  began.  Then,  the  German  princes  were 
no  more  moral  than  the  Italian,  while  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII 
8  Article  "  Reformation,"  Catholic  Encyclopedia. 


THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  AND  THE  ECONOMIC 

showed  that  scandals  could  flourish  in  countries  that  had  freed 
themselves  from  the  yoke  of  Rome  as  well  as  in  those  that  were 
still  under  the  domination  of  the  Eternal  City.  The  ethical  seems 
to  have  been  the  best  way  of  presenting  the  new  cause,  the  most 
feasible  way  of  rationalizing  tie  new  movement,  since  the  ethical 
appeal  is  direct  and  universal. 

THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  AND  THE  ECONOMIC 

On  the  intellectual  side,  in  the  matter  of  a  free  conscience  and 
private  judgment,  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  the  Church 
stood  in  the  individual's  light,  certainly  not  in  matters  of  science. 
Copernicus  was  allowed  to  publish  his  revolutionary  work  on 
science;  indeed,  the  Church  published  it  for  him  and  thus  began 
what  some  have  called  "  Catholic  astronomy,"  which,  we  might 
add,  was  rejected  by  Luther  and  Melanchthon.  The  Inquisition 
had  not  developed  an  index  expurgatoris  and  before  the  Fifth 
Lateran  Council  books  were  not  subjected  to  censorship.  More- 
over, a  kind  of  gentle  skepticism  with  a  fringe  of  heresy  was  a 
mark  of  good  breeding  among  even  high  officials  in  the  Church, 
and  to  Leo  X  is  attributed  the  comment  that  Christianity  was 
"  a  highly  profitable  fable."  We  may  feel  assured  that  Rome,  like 
every  large  city,  was  probably  more  tolerant  of  intellectual  differ- 
ences than  Wittenberg  or  Geneva.  The  intellectual  cause  of  the 
Reformation  is  even  more  inadequate  than  the  ethical  one. 

An  explanation  of  the  Reformation  has  been  advanced  in  such 
a  way  as  to  make  the  movement  a  political  one  springing  from 
an  economic  cause.  This  appears  in  Germany's  refusal  to  pay 
tribute  to  a  foreign  power,  a  conscious  opposition  to  the  transfer 
of  wealth  from  Germany  to  Rome  by  the  sale  of  benefices, 
dispensations,  and  indulgences.  Another  grievance  was  forth- 
coming in  the  enormous  landed  estate  of  the  Church,  as  also  its 
uncontrolled  and  arbitrary  policy  of  taxation.  The  foremost 
proponent  of  this  theory  is  Henry  C.  Lea,  author  of  On  the  Eve 
of  the  Reformation.4"  In  this  essay,  the  author  calls  attention  to 
the  fact  that,  in  the  indictment  of  the  papacy  drawn  up  by  Ulrich 
von  Hutten  and  addressed  to  Leo  X,  in  1517,  there  is  absolutely 

4  Cambridge  Modern  History,  Vol.  I,  Ch.  XIX. 


270     THE  EMERGENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  MIND 

no  mention  o£  faith  or  doctrine  but  rather  the  bitter  accusation 
that  the  Church  was  using  its  power  to  enrich  itself  and  im- 
poverish Germany.  As  a  matter  of  fact  Luther  himself  gave 
clear  expression  to  this  motive. 

"  How  is  it,"  asked  he,  "  that  we  Germans  are  found  to  suffer 
such  theft  and  exploitation  by  the  Pope?  ...  I  think  that  Ger- 
many gives  much  more  now  to  Rome  and  the  Pope  than  it  did 
former  days  to  the  emperors.  Yes,  many  of  us  think  that  every 
year  300,000  gulden  go  forth  from  Germany  to  Rome  purely  in 
vain,  and  in  return  we  get  derision  and  abuse.  And  then  we 
wonder  that  princes,  nobles,  cities,  and  monasteries  laud  and 
people  grow  poor!  We  ought  rather  to  wonder  that  we  still  have 
something  to  eat.  .  .  ." 5 

This  was  in  Germany,  and  it  must  be  remembered  that  Church 
exactions  were  not  so  great  in  other  countries  as,  for  example,  in 
France,  where  by  the  XVIth  century  a  strong  monarchical  and 
national  power  had  arisen  which  saw  to  it  that  there  was  no 
large  transfer  of  monies  to  Rome.  There  are  still  other  con- 
siderations which  suggest  that  the  passionate  piety  of  the  Refor- 
mation as  a  movement,  and  the  Protestantism  that  came  out  of  it, 
had  certain  strong  roots  of  a  worldly  sort.  This  appears  in  the 
old  question  of  usury.  It  is  by  no  accident  that  the  first  sys- 
tematic defense  of  interest  was  made  by  Calvin.  Catholic  ethics 
and  canon  law  forbade  the  charging  of  interest  on  the  ground 
that  it  was  usury;  but  without  the  right  to  charge  interest  and 
thus  create  the  commercial  use  of  money,  there  could  have  been 
no  commercial  expansion  and,  therefore,  no  capitalistic  economy. 
Now,  Calvin  in  his  famous  letter  on  interest  defended  the  right 
to  charge  the  same  on  the  ground  that  lending  money  was  both  a 
form  of  self-denial  and  a  risk.  This  was  a  decided  change  from 
the  Catholic  point  of  view,  from  Catholic  ethics;  that  is,  as  far 
as  the  element  of  risk  was  concerned.  St.  Augustine,  in  attempt- 
ing to  prove  "  that  the  saints  in  their  loss  of  things  temporal  lose 
nothing  at  all,"  quoted  from  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  with  the 
well-known  injunction,  "  Lay  not  up  for  yourselves  treasures  on 
earth."6  But  such  a  mystical  attitude  toward  wealth  was  not 
in  harmony  with  the  demands  of  the  new  commercial  economy. 

6  An  den  christlichen  Add  deutscher  Nation.          6  City  of  God,  Ch.  IX. 


PROTESTANTISM  AND  CAPITALISM 


PROTESTANTISM  AND  CAPITALISM 

In  the  development  of  the  modern  system  of  economics, 
Protestantism  played  an  important  part  in  connection  with  the 
modern  idea  of  work  as  well  as  with  that  of  wealth.  Man  was 
supposed  to  work  for  the  glory  of  God  and  fulfill  the  ideal  of 
a  divine  will  by  the  constant  exercise  of  the  human  one.  But 
under  Catholic  economy  this  was  no  simple  matter,  since  there 
were  more  than  a  hundred  holidays  in  the  course  of  a  year  and 
in  them  man  was  not  supposed  to  labor.  How  could  industry 
flourish  under  a  regime  in  which  a  third  of  the  time  was  devoted 
to  leisure?  Here,  again,  the  demands  of  an  expanding  economy 
were  bound  to  cry  out  for  a  reform  that  was  as  much  social  as 
religious.  "  Protestantism,  by  changing  almost  all  the  traditional 
holidays  into  workdays,  plays  an  important  part  in  the  genesis  of 
capital."  7 

Probably  the  most  significant  work  on  the  economic  aspects 
of  Protestantism  has  come  from  Max  Weber  and  his  Protestant 
Ethics  and  the  Spirit  of  Capitalism?  In  this  exhaustive  and 
highly  detailed  work,  the  author  traces  the  interrelation  between 
the  spirit  of  economic  enterprise  and  the  Protestant  ideal.  The 
thesis  that  he  maintains  is  that  the  Protestant  ethics  which  regards 
"  restless,  continuous,  systematic  work  in  a  worldly  calling  as  the 
highest  means  to  asceticism  "  functioned  in  a  concrete  way  "  as 
the  most  powerful  lever  conceivable  for  the  expansion  of  the 
spirit  of  capitalism."  Weber  tries  to  steal  a  march  on  the  eco- 
nomic interpretation  of  Protestantism  by  claiming  that,  since  the 
spirit  of  capitalism  flourished  before  the  existence  of  the  capital- 
istic system  and  since  Protestantism  gave  rise  to  the  spirit  of 
capitalism,  it  is  therefore  more  accurate  to  say  that  Protestantism 
was  the  cause  of  capitalism  than  the  reverse. 

There  is  a  connection  between  these  ecclesiastical  and  economic 
movements  in  early  modern  times.  But  what  suggested  to  Weber 
the  idea  that  Protestantism  brought  capitalism  into  being  ?  There 
was  this:  the  historical  fact  that  capitalism  with  its  rational  eco- 
nomic technique  had  developed  primarily  in  Protestant  countries. 
To  look  at  England  and  Ireland,  Germany  and  France  is  to 

7  Marx,  Capita!,  Volf  I,  jx  303.  8  Eng.  trans,  by  Talcott  (1930). 


272     THE  EMERGENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  MIND 

realize  this.  But  even  more  important  for  Weber's  thesis  is  the 
observation  that,  in  general,  workers  brought  up  in  an  intensely 
evangelical  atmosphere  were  inclined  to  take  their  work  more 
seriously,  labor  more  diligently,  and  live  more  frugally  than 
workers  in  the  old,  traditional  environment.  Weber  seems  to 
feel  that  this  correlation  was  more  than  accidental.  We  ourselves 
can  appreciate  what  will  happen  when  a  man's  religious  faith 
makes  him  work  more  faithfully  and  live  more  frugally  than 
one  of  another  faith  is  doing.  He  will  naturally  make  more 
money  and  spend  less;  the  result  will  be  accumulated  wealth 
for  investment. 

Now,  by  capitalism  Weber  does  not  mean  the  impulse  to  ac- 
quire wealth  or  sharp  business  practice  in  so  doing.  These  are 
the  characteristics  of  men  generally  in  every  economic  system 
and  cannot  be  attributed  to  capitalism  in  particular.  Capitalism 
is  the  pursuit  of  profit  in  the  form  of  "  forever  renewed  profit 
by  means  of  a  continuous  rational  enterprise."  By  the  spirit  of 
capitalism  Weber  means  a  social  ethics  which  permitted  the  rise 
of  rational  economy  and  which  opposed  traditional  restraints  to 
the  accumulation  of  wealth  as  these  were  derived  from  feudal 
Catholicism. 

An  illustration  of  the  ethical  side  of  capitalism  is  furnished  by 
the  writings  of  Benjamin  Franklin.  Weber  does  not  fail  to 
note  that  Franklin  tended  to  inculcate  a  social  morality  based 
upon  the  idea  of  getting  ahead  in  the  world.  Time  is  money 
and  wasting  time  the  "  greatest  prodigality."  All  the  virtues  such 
as  industry,  frugality,  and  punctuality  are  means  of  saving  both 
time  and  money.  When  Franklin  enunciates  the  maxim  that 
"  honesty  is  the  best  policy,"  the  old  copy-book  motto,  he  departs 
from  an  ethical  sanction  of  goodness  in  itself  for  an  economic 
principle  of  policy.  In  like  manner,  beauty  is  subordinated  to 
utility  and  work  becomes  an  end  in  itself.  From  Weber's  point 
of  view,  the  emergence  of  such  an  ethics  was  necessary  as  a 
precedent  for  establishing  the  increase  and  productivity  of  labor 
without  which  the  accumulation  of  capital  could  not  take  place. 
But  how  did  such  a  commercialized  form  of  ethics  arise  ?  Weber 
answers  this  question  by  attributing  capitalistic  ethics  to  the 
dogmas  of  the  Protestant  sects. 


CALVINISTIC  AND  PURITAN  ECONOMICS     273 

CALVINISTIC  AND  PURITAN  ECONOMICS 

The  essence  of  Calvinism  and  Puritanism  is  found  in  the  way  it 
tends  to  arrange  life  in  the  form  of  general  or  worldly  asceticism. 
The  Protestant  sects  rejected  the  idea  of  special  or  monastic  as- 
ceticism peculiar  to  the  Catholic  faith  and  introduced  instead 
a  general  and  evangelical  form  of  ascetic  practice.  All  the  world 
became  a  kind  of  monastery;  all  of  life  in  even  its  secular  em- 
ployment a  kind  of  divine  calling.  Only  the  pursuit  of  this 
calling,  only  this  narrow  life  could  be  pleasing  to  God.  Man 
could  not  win  grace  through  the  Church  with  its  sacraments, 
still  less  by  leisure,  enjoyment,  and  meditation;  man  could  win 
grace  only  by  the  labor  of  his  hands  after  the  manner  of  Him  who 
said,  "I  must  work  the  works  of  him  who  sent  me  while  it  is 
day."  From  this  general  presentation  of  Protestant  belief,  Weber 
goes  on  to  analyze  the  writings  of  Calvin,  Baxter,  and  Wesley, 
which  reveal  to  him  their  faith  in  the  concept  of  a  divine  calling 
of  all  men  on  earth,  as  also  the  way  in  which  such  methodical 
devotion  naturally  led  to  the  accumulation  of  wealth.  From 
this  line  of  reasoning,  Weber  draws  the  conclusion  that  the  chief 
efficient  cause  of  capitalistic  development  was  the  new  Protestant 
faith. 

When  we  consider  Weber's  thesis  in  connection  with  the  rise 
of  Protestantism,  we  are  bound  to  be  impressed  by  the  suggestive- 
ness  of  his  argument.  We  ourselves  observe  that  large  amounts 
of  wealth  are  in  the  hands  of  Protestants  rather  than  of  Catholics 
and,  as  has  been  observed,  that  Protestant  lands  are  usually 
industrial  and  wealthy  while  Catholic  countries  are  just  as  often 
agrarian  and  poor.  However,  at  best,  Weber  has  done  no  more 
than  uncover  a  certain  connection  between  capitalism  and  Prot- 
estantism, but  it  may  be  questioned  whether  this  connection  is  a 
necessary  one.  Before  the  Reformation,  the  spirit  of  capitalism 
existed  in  northern  Italy  and  the  Netherlands,  and  Europe  did 
not  have  to  wait  for  Luther  and  Calvin  to  inaugurate  the  new 
mode  of  producing  wealth.  It  is  thus  more  plausible  to  assert 
that  both  the  spirit  of  capitalism  and  the  ethics  of  Protestantism 
were  the  consequences  of  changes  in  the  whole  socio-economic 
environment.  These  changes  were  bound  up  with  the  discovery 


274     THE  EMERGENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  MIND 

of  new  lands,  the  rise  of  a  world  market,  the  influx  of  gold  and 
silver,  and  the  improvements  in  mechanical  technology.  The 
Reformation  may  have  influenced  the  development  of  capitalism 
without  having  been  the  cause  of  it,  but  the  Reformation  itself, 
whether  primarily  ecclesiastical  or  economic,  was  a  distinct  sign 
of  modern  times. 

THE  COPERNICAN  REVOLUTION 

The  modern  mind  has  been  made  by  science,  as  ancient  thought 
was  fashioned  by  philosophy  and  the  soul  of  primitive  man  in- 
spired by  religion.  As  we  have  seen,  the  beginnings  of  mo- 
dernity appeared  in  printing,  painting,  and  voyaging,  but  it  was 
not  the  book,  the  picture,  or  the  map  that  was  to  represent  the 
modern  mind.  The  modern  mind  was  to  express  itself  by  a 
formula.  Hence  it  would  hardly  be  amiss  to  state  that  modernity, 
with  all  the  versatility  of  its  mind  and  the  variety  of  its  ramifica- 
tions, was  made  by  mathematics,  the  application  of  mathematics 
to  nature  and  human  existence.  The  observation  of  nature  as  a 
whole  is  as  old  as  mankind.  The  study  of  nature  dates  back  to 
Archimedes  and  the  Greeks.  The  desire  to  examine  natural 
phenomena  and  experiment  upon  them  was  expressed  in  the 
XHIth  century  by  Roger  Bacon  and  by  Leonardo  da  Vinci  in  the 
XVth.  But  neither  the  primitive  mind  nor  the  Greek  intellect, 
scholastic  thought  nor  Renaissance  curiosity  effected  scientific 
results.  For  science  is  primarily  measurement,  and  the  act  of 
measuring  nature  did  not  take  place  until  well  into  the  XVIth 
century.  This  was  the  work  of  Copernicus  and  Kepler. 

The  "  Copernican  Revolution  "  gave  the  modern  man  a  new 
heavens,  as  the  Renaissance  had  given  him  a  new  earth.  But  the 
man  who  effected  this  great  change  in  cosmic  outlook  was  not 
fully  possessed  of  the  modern  mind.  Dampier-Whetham,  in  his 
History  of  Science  (1929),  places  Copernicus  in  the  Renaissance, 
and  there  were  moods  or  frames  of  mind  in  this  astronomer  that 
suggest  a  survival  of  Mediaevalism  if  not  of  Classicism.  This 
modern  astronomy  was  scholastic  in  its  tone  of  piety,  classic  in 
its  feeling  of  mathematical  harmony.  It  seemed  to  work  back- 
ward through  Scholasticism  and  St.  Augustine  to  Plato  and  Py- 


MODERN  MECHANISM  275 

thagoras  rather  than  look  forward  toward  a  new  order  of  things, 
such  as  was  indeed  to  follow.  We  style  Copernican  astronomy 
"  sun-centered  "  or  heliocentric  to  distinguish  it  from  the  Ptole- 
maic plan  of  an  "  earth-centered  "  or  geocentric  system.  If  we 
are  ultra-modern  and  accept  Relativity,  we  can  adopt  either  as- 
tronomy provided  we  make  the  changes  necessary  for  the  frame 
of  reference  adopted. 

Copernicus  (1473-1543)  took  the  heliocentric  point  of  view 
because  of  its  relative  simplicity,  just  as  it  was  because  of  its 
"  simplicity "  that  Claudius  Ptolemy  had  adopted  a  geocentric 
system.9  But  not  simplicity  alone  was  the  animating  spirit  of 
this  unique  astronomer,  for  he  was  animated  by  the  glory  of 
the  heavens  and  the  brightness  of  the  sun.  "  In  the  middle  of  all," 
said  he,  "  dwells  the  Sun.  Who  indeed  in  this  most  beautiful 
temple  would  place  the  torch  in  any  other  or  better  place  than 
one  whence  it  can  illuminate  the  whole  at  the  same  time?  Not 
ineptly,  some  call  it  the  lamp  of  the  universe,  others  its  mind, 
and  others  again  its  ruler  —  Trismegistus,  the  visible  God,  Sopho- 
cles' Electra,  the  contemplation  of  all  things.  And  thus  rightly, 
inasmuch  as  the  Sun,  sitting  on  a  royal  throne,  governs  the  cir- 
cumambient family  of  stars.  .  .  .  We  find,  therefore,  under  this 
orderly  arrangement,  a  wonderful  symmetry  in  the  universe,  and 
a  definite  relation  of  harmony  in  the  motion  and  magnitude  of 
the  orbs,  of  a  kind  it  is  not  possible  to  obtain  in  any  other  way." 1(> 
It  was  no  wonder  that  Pope  Clement  VII  heard  of  Copernicus 
and  requested  him  to  publish  his  work  —  De  Revolutionibus  Or- 
bium  Celestium  (1543). 

MODERN  MECHANISM 

The  systematization  of  the  new  astronomy  was  achieved  by 
Kepler  (1571-1630);  its  popularization,  or  the  publicity  given  to 
it,  was  the  work  of  Galileo  (1564-1642).  In  citing  the  four 
great  names  connected  with  the  new  heavens,  it  is  better  to  stress 
the  importance  of  Kepler  and  Newton,  although  the  work  of 
Copernicus  may  appear  more  spectacular.  We  are  saving  Galileo, 
so  to  speak,  for  a  more  effective  work  than  that  of  putting  Coper- 

9  Dampier-Whetham,  History  oj  Science,  p.  53,  10  /£.,  p.  121. 


THE  EMERGENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  MIND 

aicus  before  the  Church  and  the  world,  but  while  his  name  is 
before  us  we  may  make  mention  of  what  he  did.  Galileo  popu- 
larized the  Copernican  astronomy  and  made  it  look  plausible  by 
means  of  an  amateurish  telescope.  Through  this  crude  instru- 
ment he  beheld  the  moons  of  Jupiter,  which  he  took  to  be  extra 
planets,  revolving  about  that  orb.  Why,  then,  could  not  the 
planets  of  the  solar  system  revolve  in  like  manner  about  the  sun? 
That  was  something  the  human  eye  of  mundane  man  could 
apprehend  and  appreciate  and  that  cast  a  new  face  upon  the  whole 
system  of  astronomy.  Apparently  Galileo  was  lacking  in  tact 
and  diplomacy,  if  not  in  modesty,  and  just  as  apparently  the 
Church  was  lacking  in  enthusiasm  for  a  scientific  revolution.  The 
result  was  the  "  martyrdom  "  of  a  zealous,  talkative  scientist,  who 
was  compelled  to  recant  and  then  pass  about  a  dozen  fairly  peace- 
ful years  in  prison. 

It  was  Kepler  who  made  Copernican  astronomy  what  we  might 
call  a  "going  concern."  Like  Copernicus  before  him,  Kepler 
considered  the  new  heavens  with  the  eyes  of  both  science  and 
religion,  for  it  was  the  mathematical  simplicity  and  divine  har- 
mony of  the  new  astronomy  that  appealed  to  him.  "I  have 
attested  it  as  true  in  my  deepest  soul,"  said  he, "  and  I  contemplate 
its  beauty  with  incredible  and  ravishing  delight." X1  But  Kepler 
did  not  exhaust  with  mere  emotionalism  his  enthusiasm  for  the 
skies.  He  was  modern  as  well  as  mediaeval;  he  sought  facts  and 
laws  as  well  as  beauty  and  harmony.  The  facts  came  to  him  from 
the  data  gathered  by  Tycho  Brahe  (1546-1601),  who  had  "  nib- 
bled "  at  the  planetary  paths.  This  empirical  astronomer  gave 
Kepler  one  year  of  his  life  and  then  bequeathed  to  him  his  facts 
about  the  planets.  It  was  a  unique  heritage  and  we  may  wonder 
what  Kepler  thought  about  it.  For  ourselves,  we  must  look  this 
celestial  gift  horse  in  the  mouth. 

If  we  were  to  conclude  that  Kepler  derived  his  laws  of  planetary 
motion  from  the  observed  facts  furnished  him  by  another,  we 
might  be  compelled  to  admit  that  the  majestic  science  of  astron- 
omy had  been  founded  upon  Empiricism,  We  prefer  and  are 
more  inclined  to  believe  that  the  Copernican  Revolution  was 
made  by  a  major  act  of  thought  rather  than  by  a  minor  one  of 
11  Dampier-Wlictham,  History  of  Science,  p.  139. 


GALILEO  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE  277 

the  senses.  But  we  have  the  facts  of  the  one  astronomer  and  the 
theory  of  the  other.  But,  as  Cohen  points  out,  "  Tycho  Brahe's 
astronomic  tables  did  not  in  themselves  show  Kepler's  laws;  in- 
deed they  suggested  quite  different  laws  to  Brahe  himself.  Kep- 
ler could  see  these  laws  only  after  he  brought  to  his  vision  cer- 
tain speculative  ideas  of  Apollonius  (on  conic  sections)  and  of 
Plotinus."  12  There  was  more  of  the  ecstatic  than  the  empirical  in 
the  mood  and  method  of  his  investigation.  He  felt  that  God 
must  have  created  the  world  in  the  form  of  perfect  numbers 
whose  mathematical  harmony  produced  the  music  of  the  spheres 
when  the  morning  stars  sang  together.  He  was  disconcerted  to 
discover  that  the  planets  did  not  move  in  godlike  circles,  but  be- 
came reconciled  to  the  idea  that  ellipses  also  might  be  worthy  of 
the  divine  activity. 

Kepler's  mystical  mathematics  led  him  back  to  the  Pythago- 
reans and  Platonists,  but  his  famous  second  law  of  planetary 
motion  is  purely  mathematical  and  modern.  It  is  to  the  effect 
that  the  planets  revolve  about  the  sun  harmoniously  but  at  an 
ever  varying  rate  of  speed;  or  they  traverse  equal  areas  described 
by  radius  vectors  in  equal  times.  It  is  as  though,  in  the  case  of 
a  planet  like  the  earth,  the  sun  spread  out  fans,  some  long  and 
narrow,  others  short  and  broad,  and  moved  these  in  equal 
amounts  of  time.  Since  the  planets  were  driven  round  their 
ellipses  by  the  will  of  God,  they  should  move  with  uniformity, 
and  doubtless  Kepler  was  not  wholly  pleased  when  he  was  forced 
to  conclude  that  this  was  determined  by  the  area  swept  by  the 
radius  vector  instead  of  the  line  pursued  by  the  planet.  Mysticism 
and  mathematics  were  in  conflict  and  the  ancient  ideal  was  in 
opposition  to  the  modern  method;  but  modern  mathematics  won 
the  victory.  But  if  Copernicus  and  Kepler  had  confined  them- 
selves to  nothing  but  modernism,  it  is  a  question  whether  they 
would  have  given  us  the  new  astronomy. 

GALILEO  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE 

Modernity  as  such  had  still  to  appear.   The  minds  of  Coperni- 
cus and  Kepler,  which  gave  us  our  astronomy,  were  motivated 
12  Reason  and  Nature,  p.  77. 


THE  EMERGENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  MIND 

by  a  certain  degree  of  mysticism  and  operated  in  the  celestial 
world.  The  descent  to  modernity  was  made  by  Galileo,  the  first 
modern  mind  in  science,  for  it  was  he  who  brought  the  principles 
of  astronomy  to  bear  upon  terrestrial  problems  and  seemed  "  with 
magical  incantations  to  charm  the  new  planets  out  of  the  sky" 13 
Galileo  showed  himself  to  be  Italian  and  artistic,  or  technical 
rather  than  speculative.  He  proceeded  by  means  of  devices  — 
a  telescope,  an  inclined  plane,  and  the  like.  "  Modern  science/' 
says  Bergson,  *'  is  the  daughter  of  astronomy;  it  came  down  from 
heaven  to  earth  along  the  inclined  plane  of  Galileo."  14  It  is  a 
question  whether  modern  science  could  have  developed  in  the 
reverse  order  and  have  proceeded  from  the  terrestrial  ideas  of 
Galileo  to  the  celestial  ones  of  his  predecessors.  Apparently  Kep- 
ler had  to  come  before  Galileo,  for  modern  science  was  unable  to 
move  up  the  inclined  plane  of  Galileo  from  earth  to  heaven. 

As  the  first  modern  scientist,  Galileo  makes  a  picturesque  fig- 
ure. We  see  him  confirming  the  Copernican  astronomy  by  look- 
ing through  a  crude  telescope  at  the  moons  of  Jupiter.  Again  he 
is  found  dropping  iron  balls  of  different  weights  from  the  top  of 
the  Leaning  Tower  at  Pisa.  In  church,  he  observes  the  swing  of 
a  chandelier  and  hits  upon  the  principle  of  the  pendulum  and,  as 
Bergson  suggests,  he  gives  us  our  modern  mechanics  by  rolling 
balk  down  an  inclined  plane.  Finally  we  see  him  suffering  mild 
incarceration  for  his  novel  and  rather  magical  notions.  But  these 
playful  performances  of  this  eccentric  man  need  not  obscure  the 
merits  of  his  mind  nor  divert  us  from  observing  his  unique  service 
to  science. 

The  result  of  Galileo's  conception  of  nature  was  to  establish  its 
utter  physicality;  it  was  a  system  of  things  independent  of  all 
mind,  divine  and  human.  The  universe  seemed  able  to  take 
care  of  itself,  so  that,  as  in  the  case  of  the  solar  system,  the  planets 
required  no  outside  force  to  keep  them  in  motion.  The  nature 
as  well  as  the  movements  of  things  came  to  be  regarded  as  purely 
physical.  This  idea  Galileo  expressed  by  distinguishing  the  pri- 
mary from  the  secondary  qualities  of  things.  The  primary  quali- 
ties are  the  inseparable,  spatial,  and  measurable  ones;  the  second- 

13  Dampier-Whetham,  History  of  Science,  p.  142. 

14  Creative  Evolution,  tr.  Mitchell,  p.  335. 


CLASSIC  PHYSICS 

ary  are  tie  psychological  ones,  such  as  color  and  tone,  taste  and 
odor.  "  Hence  I  think,"  said  he,  "  that  tastes,  odors,  colors,  etc. 
on  the  side  o£  the  object  in  which  they  seem  to  exist,  are  nothing 
else  but  mere  names,  but  hold  their  residence  wholly  in  the  sensi- 
tive body,  so  that  if  the  animal  were  removed,  every  such  quality 
would  be  abolished  and  annihilated." 15  Now  it  was  these  dis- 
carded qualities  which  were  to  becbme  the  subject  matter  of  an- 
other modern  science  —  the  science  of  psychology.  It  was  the 
work  of  Descartes  to  transform  this  practical  distinction  into  a 
theoretical  dualism. 

CLASSIC  PHYSICS 

Modernity  in  physical  science  was  achieved  by  Galileo;  he 
arrived  at  the  modern  idea  of  mechanism  and  went  to  work  upon 
it  directly,  without  elaborating  a  system  of  physics.  That  was 
the  work  of  Newton,  who  was  born  the  year  that  Galileo  died, 
1642.  The  difference  between  this  pair  of  modern  minds  and  the 
other  one  made  up  of  Copernicus  and  Kepler  was  in  their  appre- 
ciation of  mathematics.  Copernicus  and  Kepler  looked  back- 
ward and  in  mathematics  found  mysticism;  Galileo  and  Newton 
glanced  forward  and  in  their  mathematics  found  mechanism. 
Their  idea  seems  to  have  been  that  when  phenomena  assumed 
a  mathematical  form  in  the  mind,  those  phenomena  were  neces- 
sarily of  a  mechanical  nature.  Their  leading  concepts  were  those 
of  matter  and  motion,  their  supreme  idea  of  procedure  that  of 
matter  in  motion.  They  came  too  late  in  the  history  of  science 
to  persist  with  the  idea  that  matter  was  vital;  they  came  too  early 
to  look  upon  it  as  electrical.  Thus  they  made  the  modern  in  the 
form  of  a  machine  and  created  what,  for  two  centuries,  was  to 
be  "  classical  mechanics."  We  may  allow  this  system  just  that 
length  of  time,  since  there  were  almost  exactly  two  hundred 
years  between  the  publication  of  Newton's  Principia  in  1687  and 
Ernest  Mach's  Die  MechaniJ^  in  1883. 

Newton's  system  was  successful,  if  we  may  thus  speak  of 
scientific  theory,  because  it  rationalized  the  results  of  Kepler  and 
Galileo  and  accounted  for  both  a  revolving  planet  and  a  falling' 

15  Dampier-Whetham,  History  of  Science,  p.  147, 


280     THE  EMERGENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  MIND 

apple;  successful  was  it  likewise  in  the  way  it  rationalized  every- 
day perception.  It  was  both  astronomical  and  anthropomorphic. 
It  realized  the  meaning  of  Kepler's  Second  Law  and  fulfilled  the 
expectations  of  the  common  man.  This  latter  it  did  when  it 
made  liberal  use  of  such  common  concepts  as  space  and  time, 
matter  and  force.  We  know  or  think  we  know  space  as  the 
medium  which  everywhere  envelops  us;  its  three  dimensions 
are  determined  by  our  position  and  the  movements  we  make  as 
these  are  recorded  by  die  semi-circular  canals  within  the  inner 
ear.  Time,  likewise,  seems  familiar  in  the  simple  form  of  past, 
present,  future;  as  also  in  the  perception  of  movement  and  growth, 
in  the  personal  experience  of  ageing.  Matter  is  something  we 
believe  we  perceive  more  or  less  perfectly,  while  force  is  some- 
thing that  we  ourselves  exert.  Newton  magnified  and  systema- 
tized these  familiar  concepts.  His  world  was  one  in  which  com- 
mon sense  feels  at  home,  as  it  does  not  in  the  world  of  Relativity, 
in  which  matter  and  force  are  absent,  in  which  space  and  time  are 
no  longer  absolute. 

The  modern  mind  in  its  scientific  form  was  fully  established 
after  the  publication  of  Newton's  Principle*.  This  was  to  our 
period  what  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle  had  been  to  the  ancient 
order,  what  the  theology  of  Aquinas  had  been  to  the  mediaeval 
period.  The  modern  mind  had  arrived  at  the  idea  of  what  we 
are  knowing,  referring  to  it  as  "  classic  physics,"  something  out 
of  date  and  largely  historical  We  have  been  in  a  kind  of  post- 
modern period  since  the  beginning  of  the  century.  As  for  the  or- 
thodox system  of  science,  it  may  be  said  that  it  solved  the  prob- 
lem of  nature  in  the  form  of  mechanism,  but  none  the  less  did 
it  create  a  number  of  new  problems.  Newton  achieved  a  physical 
synthesis  of  things,  but  had  to  leave  man  out  of  his  calculation. 
It  was  not  long  before  the  contrast  between  nature  and  humanity 
began  to  appear.  The  *e  secondary  qualities  "  of  Galileo,  indeed 
the  "  secondary  "  or  psychological  phenomena,  were  soon  to  be 
heard  from.  At  first  these  qualities,  such  as  color  and  tone,  taste 
and  smell,  were  things  that  physical  science  could  not  measure 
and  thus  had  to  reject.  But  in  time  the  secondary  qualities  were 
adopted  by  the  new  science  of  psychology,  which  had  need  of 
them. 


MODERN  DUALISM 


MODERN  DUALISM 

It  is  no  easy  task  to  draw  a  circle  around  modernity,  especially 
as  the  modern  era  is  far  from  being  complete,  but  it  is  possible  to 
draw  a  line  through  it.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  from  the  beginning, 
modern  thought  has  proceeded  like  a  plow  piling  up  masses 
to  right  and  left.  This  modern  movement,  so  different  from 
ancient  or  mediaeval  procedure,  has  progressed  by  a  series  of 
dualisms.  We  shall  appreciate  these  splits  if  we  select  four  from 
the  speculative  field  and  as  many  from  the  practical  world.  On 
the  theoretical  side,  we  find  the  field  of  discussion  divided  into  the 
areas  of  mind  and  body,  understanding  and  sense,  freedom  and 
determinism,  religion  and  science.  The  practical  realm  is  just 
as  completely  bifurcated  in  the  individual  and  society,  labor  and 
capital,  virtue  and  pleasure,  optimism  and  pessimism.  It  is  the 
same  mind  that  thinks  now  this  way,  then  that;  it  is  the  same  will 
that  is  motivated  from  within  or  from  without;  but  it  is  only 
by  constantly  shifting  the  view  or  the  value  that  the  modern 
mind  can  comprehend  itself  and  its  world.  It  may  be  the  task 
of  the  future  in  a  post-mortem  period  to  restore  upon  a  higher 
plane  the  original  unity  of  western  thought  and  thus  reconcile 
microcosm  to  macrocosm,  but  our  present  task  is  to  consider  how 
this  dualism  came  about. 

Modern  thought  began  with  the  separation  of  man  from  the 
world  in  which  he  lived.  Of  course,  this  separation  was  not 
actual,  nor  was  man  rendered  homeless;  he  continued  to  eat  and 
drink,  work  and  sleep  on  the  same  earth  and  under  the  same 
skies.  But  his  conception  of  his  world  and  himself  underwent 
radical  change.  Before  modern  mechanics  came  into  being,  man 
had  felt  a  kind  of  kinship  with  the  world  generally,  both  earth 
and  the  heavens.  He  had  yielded  the  notion  that  the  stars  were 
vital  things  more  or  less  like  human  beings,  but  had  yet  to  think 
of  their  behavior  as  wholly  different  from  his  own.  With  St. 
Francis  of  Assisi,  he  still  thought  of  the  sun  as  his  brother  and 
the  moon  as  his  sister.  At  any  rate,  there  was  some  sort  of  kin- 
ship between  man  and  nature  that  prevailed.  Now  it  was  the 
rise  of  modern  astronomy  and  the  development  of  modern  me- 
chanics that  dispelled  that  attractive  myth.  It  was  not  merely 


282     THE  EMERGENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  MIND 

that  the  universe  was  larger  than  man  had  imagined;  it  was  seen 
to  be  different  from  what  he  had  expected.  The  universe  had 
become  a  machine. 

The  general  breach  between  nature  and  man  had  been  in  the 
air  from  the  beginning.  The  world  in  which  man  had  lived 
and  of  which  he  had  felt  himself  a  part  gave  way  to  a  purely 
physical  order  made  up  of  time  and  space,  matter  and  force;  a 
world  for  scientists  perhaps,  but  not  for  human  beings.  The  old 
connection  between  world  and  man  was  kept  alive  by  religion  and 
poetry,  by  practical  life  and  moral  ideals.  For  in  spite  of  the 
overwhelming  argument  in  favor  of  mechanism,  man  is  forced  to 
believe  in  life,  consciousness  and  freedom.  The  only  human 
aspect  of  the  modern  natural  order  has  been  that  suggested  by 
the  human  understanding.  Man  may  not  be  able  to  live  in  the 
world  as  his  spiritual  home,  but  he  is  able  to  measure  it  and,  in 
some  degree,  to  understand  it.  We  are  now  coming  to  the  place 
in  the  XXth  century  where  we  realize  that  we  cannot  account  for 
nature  by  assuming  that  it  consists  of  bodies  in  motion,  but  it 
was  this  simple  explanation  of  things  that  gave  us  the  classic 
conception  of  modern  life* 

MIND  AND  MATTER 

We  will  consider  this  breach  between  man  and  nature  in  the 
form  of  philosophical  dualism  and  we  must  prepare  to  be  an- 
noyed. This  dualism  when  stated  simply  concerns  the  way  we 
receive  the  world  and  the  way  we  react  upon  it.  According  to 
dualism,  both  the  reception  and  reaction  are  impossible!  How 
does  this  double  distress  come  about  ?  It  comes  about  in  connec- 
tion with  our  sensations  and  motives.  According  to  the  dualism 
initiated  by  Descartes,  sensation  should  be  produced  by  stimulus, 
but  the  stimulus  belongs  to  the  physical  order  while  the  sensa- 
tion is  ensconced  within  the  mind;  hence,  there  can  be  no  com- 
merce, no  exchange  between  things  that  belong  to  different 
realms.  It  is  just  as  bad  in  the  case  of  our  motives.  They  arise 
within  us  as  spiritual  or,  at  any  rate,  psychological  events,  but 
much  good  it  does  them,  since  they  cannot  break  into  the  tight 
physical  order  and  produce  motions.  Between  the  physical  and 


MIND  AND  MATTER  283 

the  psychological  such  a  great  gulf  is  fixed  that  no  event  in 
nature  can  produce  a  corresponding  event  in  mind  and  vice  versa. 
The  practical  conclusion  should  be  that  man  is  both  unconscious 
and  inactive. 

The  layman  who  has  paid  no  attention  to  the  modern  prob- 
lem of  mind  and  body  has  a  right  to  be  surprised  at  such  modern 
reasoning.  The  unphilosophical  person  has  a  right  to  insist  that 
man  is  distinctly  conscious  of  the  world  about  him  and  enjoys 
sensations  that  the  men  of  the  pre-modern  period  knew  nothing 
about,  as  the  intensified  sensations  produced  by  telescope  and 
microscope.  In  like  manner,  the  lay  mind  has  a  right  to  urge  that 
the  modern  man  enjoys  possibilities  of  action  undreamed  of  be- 
fore his  day  and  that  these  he  has  realized  in  the  machinery  he 
has  created.  No  matter  how  "  impossible  "  the  connection  be- 
tween the  modern  mind  and  the  modern  body  or  the  modern  man 
and  the  modern  world,  consciousness  has  increased  in  clearness 
and  the  will  in  power.  Man  perceives  things  and  performs  acts 
impossible  under  the  old  scientific  regime.  His  deadly  dualism 
seems  very  much  out  of  place;  it  seems  indeed  the  very  reverse 
of  good  sense. 

If  the  mediaeval  mind  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  saw 
nothing  and  did  nothing,  we  could  understand  such  a  philoso- 
phy, but  it  is  difficult  to  understand  how  the  alert  and  active 
modern  mind  should  have  laid  down  theoretical  premises  lead- 
ing to  such  a  lamentable  conclusion.  Only  a  few  of  those  who 
started  with  the  theoretical  premise  were  willing  to  draw  the 
practical  conclusion.  Spinoza  did  this  when  he  summed  up  the 
whole  meaning  of  life  in  the  form  of  "  acquiescence."  One  of 
Descartes'  immediate  followers,  Arnold  Geulincx,  was  even  more 
emphatic  in  his  conclusion,  which  was  to  the  effect  that  the 
moral  life  consists  in  nothing  but  renunciation  and  the  most 
perfect  attitude  of  man  toward  his  own  mind  is  that  of  self- 
contempt —  contemptus  sui.  But  moderns  with  practically  no 
exception  have  come  to  the  opposite  conclusion  and  have  argued 
that  the  modern  view  increases  the  powers  of  perception  and 
activity.  The  original  dualism,  however,  remains  to  puzzle  and 
perplex  the  speculative  mind. 

In  the  interest  of  our  instinctive  desire  for  unity  in  our  thought, 


284     THE  EMERGENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  MIND 

we  desire  to  rid  ourselves  of  this  painful  dualism.  Idealism  does 
this  nobly  when  it  attempts  to  reduce  all  reality  to  the  mentality 
that  makes  man  aware  of  it  and  enables  him  to  study  it.  Ma- 
terialism keeps  reminding  us  that  in  the  world  things  exist  as  so 
many  facto  bruta  wholly  independent  of  our  way  of  perceiving 
or  thinking  about  them.  If  we  assume  the  mechanistic  point  of 
view,  we  place  ourselves  in  a  paradoxical  position.  It  is  as  though 
we  invited  the  human  mind  to  elaborate  a  perfect  system  of 
physical  operations  only  to  find  out  that  it  had  thought  its  own 
self  out  of  the  total  scheme  of  things.  The  mind  of  the  modern 
man  has  worked  wonders  in  the  worlds  of  stars  and  atoms,  but  at 
the  moment  when  it  might  appear  to  be  at  its  best,  it  seems  to  be  at 
its  worst.  It  is  as  though  the  mind  were  a  philanthropist  who  had 
bestowed  all  his  wealth  upon  the  world  only  to  render  himself 
bankrupt.  The  things  that  man  has  accomplished  in  his  modern 
science  would  give  the  impression  that  he  possesses  the  mind  of  a 
god,  but  when  this  physical  reasoning  is  applied  to  psychology 
it  creates  the  impression  that  man's  mind  is  only  that  of  the  beast. 
Man  has  invested  heavily  in  nature,  but  he  has  come  to  the  place 
where  he  realizes  that  his  mental  wealth  is  in  the  form  of  frozen 
assets.  However,  it  may  be  suggested  that  the  physical  science 
of  the  XXth  century  is  showing  us  how  these  vast  holdings  may 
be  liquidated, 

FREEDOM  AND  MECHANISM 

The  same  paradox  that  we  have  just  observed  in  the  conflict 
between  thought  and  thing  appears  again  in  the  character  of  free- 
dom and  law.  It  is  the  opposition  between  motivation  and  mech- 
anism. Apparently  the  modern  man  emancipated  his  intellect 
at  the  expense  of  his  will,  for  he  elaborated  a  scientific  mechanism 
in  which  the  will  has  no  place.  It  is  such  a  situation  that 
"  puzzles  the  will "  and,  as  far  as  human  deeds  are  concerned, 
makes  them  "  lose  the  name  of  action."  If  the  thinkers  of  the 
ancient  and  mediaeval  orders  had  argued  against  freedom,  which 
was  seldom  the  case,  we  could  understand  their  feelings,  since 
they  were  dominated  by  both  the  physical  and  political,  the  world 
and  nature,  the  Roman  Empire  and  the  Catholic  Church.  But  in- 


THE  ENCYCLOPEDIC  TENDENCY     285 

stead  of  contending  against  their  free  wills,  they  calmly  cher- 
ished the  liberty  with  which  they  lived.  We  do  the  same  today 
no  matter  how  thoroughly  we  believe  in  a  mechanistic  order,  but 
when  we  try  to  balance  our  beliefs,  we  discover  a  vast  sea  of 
Natural  Law  which  tends  to  swallow  up  the  tiny  stream  o£ 
freedom. 

The  present  tendency  of  the  modern  mind  is  away  from  the 
settled  notions  of  mechanism.  We  are  ceasing  to  dogmatize 
about  cause  and  effect  and  are  trying  to  maintain  the  balance  be- 
tween them  without  asserting  that  there  must  be  just  as  much  of 
one  as  o£  the  other.  Even  the  idea  of  Natural  Law,  as  we  shall 
see,  is  undergoing  such  changes  as  to  make  the  world  appear 
much  looser  than  it  did  throughout  modern  science  up  to  the 
close  of  the  XlXth  century.  But,  since  our  aim  is  to  fixate  the 
modern  notion,  we  may  assume  that,  from  the  days  of  Galileo 
until  a  generation  ago,  the  modern  man  elaborated  a  view  of 
things  that  we  recognize  as  "  classic  physics/5  In  the  history  of 
mankind,  that  conception  will  take  its  place  in  line  with  the 
classic  philosophy  of  the  ancients  and  the  scholastic  theology  of 
the  mediaevals. 

THE  ENCYCLOPEDIC  TENDENCY 

A  divisive  as  well  as  a  dualistic  spirit  was  destined  to  become 
characteristic  of  the  modern  mind.  This  may  be  identified  as  the 
encyclopedic  tendency  in  modern  thought.  The  idea  of  extending 
the  various  fields  of  knowledge  by  making  significant  observa- 
tions, recording  facts,  and  making  experiments  occurred  first  in 
a  clear  way  to  the  mind  of  Francis  Bacon.  It  was  the  natural 
outcome  of  the  inductive  method  he  advocated;  the  idea  con- 
tained in  it  was  adopted  by  the  French  Encyclopedists  of  the 
XVIIIth  century.  But  theirs  was  not  the  Baconian  spirit.  He 
had  advocated  the  encyclopedic  view  with  the  aim  of  getting 
away  from  Scholasticism;  they  adopted  his  general  plan,  but 
for  the  purpose  of  elaborating  a  different  philosophy  —  that 
of  Mechanism.  Now  it  is  the  encyclopedic  in  the  sense  of  in- 
clusive knowledge  rather  than  encyclopedia  in  the  sense  of  "  cir- 
cular instruction  "  that  marks  the  modern  mind.  It  was  in  the 


286     THE  EMERGENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  MIND 

way  that  knowledge,  proceeding  inductively,  began  to  ramify^  in 
various  directions  that  created  what  we  are  calling  the  divisive 


- 

When  the  course  of  knowledge  followed  the  deductive  method 

of  Classicism  and  Scholasticism,  it  used  the  principle  of  inves- 
tigation with  the  aim  of  corroborating  a  preconceived  plan  of 
thought.  The  fact  was  supposed  to  corroborate  the  idea.  In- 
ductive thinking,  while  it  is  not  innocent  of  theoretical  considera- 
tions, places  the  emphasis  upon  the  fact;  the  theory  that  follows 
is  dependent  upon  preliminary  observation.  The  result  of  such 
procedure  has  been  to  create  various  branches  of  knowledge 
which  are  supposed  to  be  coordinated  in  the  most  feasible  man- 
ner. It  is  easy  to  exaggerate  the  reverence  for  facts  and  devotion 
to  mere  induction,  but  it  is  undeniable  that  this  broad,  miscel- 
laneous method  has  prevailed  in  modern  times.  Having  broken 
with  philosophy,  it  remained  aloof  from  the  metaphysical,  and 
it  is  only  in  the  present  century  that  the  task  of  acquiring  knowl- 
edge from  nature  has  made  it  expedient  to  develop  a  theory  of 
knowledge  based  upon  the  mind.  The  return  of  philosophy  to 
science  has  been  brought  about  largely  by  the  conflicts  between 
new  and  old  systems  of  physics  and  psychology,  between  mecha- 
nism and  vitalism,  evolution  and  dogmatism.  Philosophy  is 
appealed  to  with  the  hope  that  it  may  be  able  to  construct  a 
unified  form  of  thinking,  a  scientific  methodology. 

What  we  have  before  us  at  a  time  when  modern  thought  has 
come  to  a  climax  is  an  intellectual  Tower  of  Babel  with  its  con- 
fusion of  tongues.  When  modern  thought  abandoned  the  prin- 
ciple of  deducing  consequences  from  conditions  and  began  col- 
lecting the  results  of  experience,  its  investigations  extended  in 
various  directions.  This  has  brought  about  a  ramification  of  the 
various  forms  of  knowledge,  so  that  schools  of  science  are  not 
unlike  schools  of  art.  The  one  have  different  methods;  the 
other,  different  kinds  of  technique.  In  science  this  ramification 
has  resulted  in  a  number  of  different  ideologies.  This  term  is 
used  in  a  sense  other  than  that  of  French  philosophy  in  the 
XVIIIth  century.  There  it  amounted  to  little  more  than  the 
sensational  philosophy  of  Cabanis  (1757-1808).  Today  an  ideol- 
ogy means  a  special  way  of  reasoning  in  a  particular  field  of 


MODERN  IDEOLOGIES 

investigation,  with  a  tendency  to  extend  the  method  into  other 
and  alien  fields.  These  ideologies  are  mental  patterns  which  are 
neither  true  nor  false  in  themselves  and  amount  to  no  more  than 
useful  fictions  in  the  interpretation  of  the  special  facts  in  the  par- 
ticular case.  They  are  the  most  characteristic  features  of  modern 
thought  as  it  shapes  itself  today. 

MODERN  IDEOLOGIES 

In  the  idea  of  mechanism  with  its  pattern  of  a  machine  we  find 
one  of  the  most  persistent  of  modern  ideologies.  At  bottom, 
mechanism  is  a  theory  that  everything  which  occurs  can  be  ex- 
plained in  terms  of  material  parts  and  particles  in  motion-  The 
picture  of  the  universe  as  a  machine  facilitated  observation  and 
experiment  without  itself  being  proved  by  such  empirical  meth- 
ods. This  mechanical  fiction  does  no  harm  as  long  as  it  remains 
within  the  field  of  physics  where  it  is  ever  subject  to  correction, 
but  it  has  proved  misleading  when,  by  force  of  analogy.,  it  has 
been  applied  to  the  fields  of  biology,  psychology,  and  sociology. 
It  is  not  at  all  plausible  when  we  attempt  to  model  mind  on  the 
pattern  of  matter  and  then  regard  man,  mind,  and  society  as 
"  machines." 

In  the  field  of  psychology  there  have  been  various  ideologies,  as 
"  soul,"  "  mind  stuff,"  "  brain,"  and  "  behavior."  The  pattern  in 
vogue  at  present  is  that  of  behavior,  according  to  which  psy- 
chology, like  physiology,  may  study  the  relation  of  stimulus  to  re- 
sponse without  considering  how,  if  at  all,  this  bodily  transaction 
effervesces  in  the  form  of  individual  consciousness.  There  can 
be  no  scientific  objection  to  this  ideology  until  behaviorism,  hav- 
ing itself  dispensed  with  consciousness  as  a  factor,  proceeds  to 
dismiss  it  altogether.  Another  form  of  psychological  ideology  is 
found  in  the  mental  mechanism  of  "complexes"  of  psycho- 
analysis. These  are  understood  as  consolidations  of  emotions, 
especially  those  associated  with  sex.  Doubtless  we  are  more 
emotional  than  we  realize,  but  the  mind  has  a  way  of  making 
allowance  for  its  feelings.  It  discounts  them  in  such  a  way  that 
the  course  of  cognition  and  die  process  of  reasoning  are  not 
seriously  disturbed. 


288     THE  EMERGENCE  OF  THE  MODERN  MIND 

In  the  practical  world,  a  characteristic  ideology  appears  in  the 
form  of  a  economic  determinism."  If  the  study  of  matter  and 
mind  led  to  their  mechanistic  Ideologies,  there  is  no  reason  to  be 
surprised  that  the  study  of  industry  and  economic  value  should 
lead  to  a  corresponding  ideology.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  in 
its  own  field  the  economic  factor  should  be  uppermost;  the  econo- 
mist should  consider  how  man  makes  a  living,  how  wealth  is 
produced  and  distributed.  But  economic  reasoning  is  not  so 
secure  when  it  makes  its  private  pattern  the  model  for  all  his- 
torical activity.  Just  as  the  actual  machine  in  modern  civilization 
tempts  us  to  believe  that  everything  in  nature  and  man  is  subject 
to  mechanical  control,  so  the  importance  of  a  livelihood  and 
money  is  such  as  to  make  us  feel  that  the  economic  motive  in 
life  is  supreme.  But  to  reason  in  such  ways  would  be  to  commit 
the  ideological  error.  Such  a  system  of  ideologies  is  inherent  in 
modern  thought,  with  its  tendency  to  investigate  in  various 
directions.  Indeed,  the  very  idea  of  Natural  Law,  without  which 
modern  procedure  seems  impossible,  is  not  lacking  in  the  ideo- 
logical. 

It  is  now  our  task  to  follow  the  branches  of  modern  thought 
as  these  appear  in  the  various  enterprises  of  modern  civilization 
as  well  as  in  the  various  disciplines  of  modern  culture.  We 
shall  observe  the  modern  mind  at  work  elaborately  in  the  fields 
of  science  and  politics,  in  philosophy  and  economics,  and  shall 
mark  its  achievements  in  developing  national  types  of  civiliza- 
tion and  culture.  This  will  bring  us  to  the  present  with  its 
startling  outlook  and  may  permit  a  forecast  of  the  immediate 
future  or  the  civilization  and  culture  o£  the  XXth  century. 


CHAPTER  XII 
MODERN  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD 


THE  MAGIC  OF  SCIENCE 

NOTHING  IS  MORE  SIGNIFICANT  OF  THE  MODERN  MIND  THAN 
science,  scarcely  anything  more  characteristic  of  the 
modern  man  than  his  belief  In  a  form  of  knowledge 
he  does  not  fully  understand.  In  the  past,  the  popular  mind 
was  wont  to  attribute  to  religious  belief  the  most  extraordinary 
possibilities  in  the  domain  of  both  spirit  and  flesh.  At  the 
present  time,  which  is  famous  for  the  automobile  and  radio, 
there  is  an  equally  devout  belief  in  the  power  of  science  to 
answer  all  questions,  supply  all  wants,  and  even  cure  all  ills. 
This  is  not  a  question  of  physical  science  as  such,  but  one  that 
concerns  social  psychology.  Are  we  not  in  a  condition  of  scien- 
tific enthusiasm  bordering  on  hysteria?  If  so,  the  correction  of 
the  error  and  the  cure  for  the  complaint  may  be  found  generally 
in  history,  in  the  development  of  man  and  man's  opinions.  Once 
we  assume  the  standpoint  of  historical  perspective,  we  realize 
that,  as  Talleyrand  said,  "  everything  happens,"  and  realize  also 
that  the  shining  present  is  only  one  ray  of  light  in  the  sun;  that 
the  present  present,  so  to  speak,  is  only  fractionally  different 
from  almost  any  past  present.  Once  we  assume  the  standpoint 
of  historical  trends,  we  realize  that  science  is  not  solitary  in  the 
spiritual  life  of  man;  there,  however,  it  occupies  a  unique  position. 
The  nature  of  science,  which  is  chiefly  mathematical,  makes  us 
despair  of  common  perception.  Like  Faust,  we  are  inclined  to 
cry  out,  "Where  can  I  grasp  thee,  thou  Infinite  Nature?  — 
Wo  fass  ich  Dick,  unendliche  Natur?  "  With  just  two  eyes  and 
just  two  hands,  how  can  we  grasp,  how  comprehend  the  natural 
order,  whose  secret  seems  to  repose  in  the  hands  of  those  who  are 
adept  in  the  higher  mathematics?  The  quantitative  aspect  of  the 
universe  baffles  us;  one  moment  it  expands  to  a  sphere  whose  di- 
ameter, given  in  terms  of  light-years,  yields  a  row  of  figures 
for  which  we  have  no  name.  Then,  turning  on  itself,  as  it  were, 

S.T.—  20  2.89 


290  MODERN  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD 

the  same  universe  contracts  to  a  point  expressible  in  terms  of  so 
many  decimal  places.  Our  minds  are  adapted  to  neither  the 
macroscopic  nor  the  microscopic  universe;  and  unfortunately  for 
us,  science  is  mostly  measurement.  But  the  quantitative  form 
of  the  world  is  not  all,  for  there  are  varieties  of  things  which  have 
their  unique  modes  of  behavior.  Hence,  it  is  only  the  expert 
working  intensively  who  can  hope  to  master  any  of  the  sciences, 
and  we  have  at  least  four  of  these  —  physics  and  chemistry, 
biology  and  psychology.  Over  these  arches  the  dominant  science 
of  mathematics;  in  and  around  them  is  the  science  of  sociology, 
which  seeks  to  relate  them  to  civilization.  How  can  we  hope 
to  present  the  subject  of  science  within  the  scope  of  a  single 
chapter  when  the  range  of  the  study  might  well  form  an 
encyclopedia? 

We  begin  where  man  began  — with  the  general  notion  that 
science  is  knowledge  of  the  universe.  Primitive  man  had 
"  science  "  in  the  form  of  general,  practical  observation,  for  he 
had  come  to  the  place  in  his  evolution  where  he  needed  it.  •  He 
could  calculate  direction  and  distance;  he  realized  that  land  was 
different  from  sea,  that  some  things  lived  and  others  were  inert, 
and  that  there  was  a  difference  between  mere  surfaces  and  the 
three-dimensional  objects  he  could  handle.  This  man  of  some 
thirty  thousand  years  ago  rejoiced  in  what  Bergson  calls  "  natural 
geometry  "  and  what,  in  addition,  we  may  call "  natural  mathemat- 
ics n  and  "  natural  mechanics."  His  work  in  fashioning  weapons 
and  tools  showed  him  some  properties  of  matter  and  some  powers 
of  the  brain.  Man  was  beginning  to  come  to  a  practical  under- 
standing with  the  world  in  which  he  lived.  But  we  can  hardly 
speak  of  such  knowledge  as  science,  since  scientific  knowledge  to 
be  conceived  and  communicated  requires  symbols  and  these  did 
not  appear  until  the  Phoenicians  devised  the  short  alphabet  and 
the  Hindus  arranged  what  we  call  the  Arabic  numerals.  But  from 
what  the  primitive  man  did  and  did  not  know,  we  can  infer  that 
science  is  a  kind  of  symbolism.  "  Science,"  says  Eddington, "  aims 
at  constructing  a  world  which  shall  be  symbolic  of  the  world  of 
commonplace  experience." 1 

How  shall  we  laymen,  who  know  only  the  rudiments  of  a 

1  The  Nature  of  the  Physical  World,  p.  xiil. 


THE  VALUE  OF  SCIENCE  2gi 

science  here  and  there,  place  ourselves  in  the  attitude  of  that 
superman  we  have  come  to  know  as  the  scientist?  Why,  in  just 
that  way;  that  is,  by  assuming  the  scientific  attitude  and  by 
giving  things  a  knowing  look.  We  can  at  least  be  curious  about 
them  and  not  surrender  to  the  utter  practicality  of  life.  There 
are  other  attitudes  we  must  assume  in  the  study  of  human  civili- 
zation and  culture,  the  point  of  view  in  history,  philosophy, 
politics,  economics,  art,  and  the  like.  We  do  not  intend  to 
dabble  in  science  or  be  merely  dilettant,  for  we  want  no  smat- 
tering idea  of  such  an  important  subject.  Suppose  we  follow  the 
analogy  of  the  critic  who  is  not  a  painter  or  a  poet,  but  who  can 
get  at  the  value  and  meaning  of  pictures  and  poems?  Or  one 
can  be  like  a  lawyer  whose  flexible  mind  adapts  itself  to  all  sorts 
of  cases  and  who  can  master  enough  of  their  content  to  put  the 
law  into  them.  One  who  desires  to  understand  and  appreciate 
science  might  even  regard  himself  as  a  tourist  who,  guidebook  in 
hand,  observes  the  points  of  interest  in  various  lands  without  any 
idea  of  settling  down  in  any  one  of  them.  Without  specializing, 
we  can  still  arrive  at  the  specific  point  of  view  in  science  and 
perhaps  the  sharper  angle  of  each  separate  body  of  scientific 
knowledge. 

THE  VALUE  OF  SCIENCE 

Probably  the  best  thing  to  do  is  to  appreciate  science,  or  feel  its 
values  before  we  measure  its  truths.  The  critic  is  supposed  to 
do  that  with  the  book  or  canvas;  the  analysis  of  the  artist's  tech- 
nique can  come  later  on.  The  lawyer  does  that  with  his  client 
who  seems  to  have  a  case;  just  how  that  is,  is  to  be  shown  after 
cases  and  courts  are  studied  more  carefully.  Of  course,  we  must 
accept  science  since  it  is  a  definite  phase  of  our  civilization  and 
has  given  so  clear  a  tone  to  our  culture.  Then,  we  are  almost 
required  to  be  familiar  with  its  leading  theories,  such  as  those 
of  energy,  evolution,  and  relativity,  since  these  are  matters  of 
popular  discussion  which  have  come  down  to  the  newspapers. 
But  being  impressed  by  science  and  being  appreciative  of  its 
merits  are  not  quite  the  same.  It  is  for  us  to  find  out  what  science 
really  amounts  to  or  what  value  it  has  for  mankind.  We  might 


292  MODERN  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD 

go  so  far  as  to  consider  science  a  kind  of  commodity  and  then 
raise  the  question  whether  it  satisfies  a  human  want  in  our 
civilization. 

Our  civilization  is  not  a  natural  one  like  that  o£  primitive  man, 
a  philosophical  one  like  that  of  the  Greeks,  nor  has  it  the  religious 
character  of  the  mediaeval  State.  Our  civilization  is  a  scientific 
one;  at  any  rate  it  is  that  more  than  anything  else.  When  we 
survey  it  outwardly  as  it  appears  today,  the  effects  of  science  are 
omnipresent.  Practically  all  our  comforts  and  benefits  come 
from  scientific  machinery.  What  these  immediate  values  are  we 
will  not  presume  to  state;  their  name  is  legion  and  it  is  difficult 
to  think  of  a  want  which  science  does  not  satisfy,  a  desire  it  does 
not  grant.  The  difficult  thing  to  do  is  to  think  of  anything,  like 
spring-water  or  firewood,  that  is  not  a  scientific  product.  Our 
faith  is  based  upon  scientific  law;  our  hope  lies  in  what  science 
can  accompEsh  for  us.  There  used  to  be  and  still  is  a  "  conflict 
between  science  and  religion,"  as  far  as  views  of  the  world  are 
concerned.  Now  there  seems  to  be  competition  between  the 
material  and  spiritual  on  the  basis  of  the  human  values  they  can 
supply.  People  believe  in  religion  for  what  it  can  do  for  their 
souls;  they  are  now  believing  in  science  because  of  what  it  does 
for  their  bodies.  Until  there  are  deeper  religious  needs  to  be  met, 
people  will  feel  that  science  satisfies.  Something  like  this  seems 
to  be  the  popular  feeling. 

Science  has  improved  our  earthly  condition  beyond  any  pos- 
sible estimate  of  value,  but  has  it  improved  us  ?  We  have  a  better 
world,  but  are  we  better  men?  Our  society  is  a  much  smoother 
affair,  but  has  the  roughness  of  human  nature  been  reduced  by 
any  known  scientific  process?  According  to  Karl  Pearson  in 
his  Grammar  oj  Science,  science  justifies  itself  in  the  promotion  of 
sound  citizenship.  This  claim  for  science  is  not  made  upon  the 
basis  of  any  special  discovery  as  though  science  had  unearthed 
the  perfect  State  or  discovered  the  perfect  law,  but  to  the  scientific 
temper.  This  is  engendered  by  facts  —  the  finding  and  collecting 
and  connecting  of  facts.  "  Modern  science,"  says  he,  "  as  training 
the  mind  to  an  exact  and  impartial  analysis  of  facts,  is  an  educa- 
tion specially  fitted  to  promote  sound  citizenship."  2 


FRIEND  OR  FOE?  2g3 

FRIEND  OR  FOE? 

But  does  not  science  make  scientists  rather  than  human  beings? 
What  science  lacks  is  the  warmth  of  humanity,  the  sense  of 
human  values.  It  is  much  more  fair  to  nature  than  to  man.  The 
intensive  cultivation  of  it  seems  to  lead  man  out  of  his  human 
nature  into  a  vast,  impersonal  field  where  nothing  but  science 
is  thought  o£  The  result  is  that  the  mind  which  is  bright  to 
truths  in  the  physical  order  is  opaque  to  the  things  of  the  spirit. 
We  observe  this  when  a  scientist  proceeds  to  give  his  views  on 
such  humanistic  topics  as  art  and  religion,  ethics  and  politics. 
Usually  he  carries  his  authoritarian  spirit  and  proceeds  to  tell  us 
about  the  what-should-be  in  the  same  way  that  he  has  been 
telling  us  about  the  what-is.  And  the  difference  between  the 
scientific  field  of  facts  and  the  humanistic  order  of  values  is  that 
one  deals  with  what  is,  the  other  with  what  is  to  be.  Hence  mat- 
ters of  taste  and  belief,  of  ideals  and  laws  are  entirely  different 
from  those  things  that  are  found  in  the  realm  of  time  and  space. 
If  the  spirit  of  science  were  allowed  to  work  its  way  into  man's 
blood  instead  of  going  out  after  a  nebula  or  an  atomic  order,  its 
practical  value  would  be  what  Pearson  declares  it  is. 

At  its  very  best,  science  is  only  neutral;  its  account  shows 
neither  debit  nor  credit.  What  it  has  done  for  industry,  it  has 
undone  in  warfare.  Its  anaesthetic  gases  which  prevent  pain  are 
in  their  effect  neutralized  by  the  poison  gases  which  inflict  pain 
and  cause  death.  On  the  one  hand  it  produces  the  tractor  for  the 
grain  field,  with  the  other  the  tank  for  the  field  of  battle.  Its 
explosives  are  useful  in  mining,  but  deadly  in  their  militaristic 
connection.  We  are  better  off  in  times  of  peace  and  worse  off  in 
times  of  war.  When  it  comes  to  promoting  the  peace  of  the 
future,  science  is  noncommittal.  It  waits  until  the  unscientific 
mind  in  a  State  decides  what  the  State  wants  to  do,  then  science 
is  ready  to  serve  as  either  the  friend  or  the  foe  of  mankind.  The 
intellectual  neutrality  of  science  arises  from  the  fact  that  science 
takes  nature  and  man  as  they  are  and  then  attempts  no  more  than 
a  matter-of-fact  relationship  between  them.  Nature  is  not  looked 
upon  as  a  poor  copy  of  a  perfect  universe  or  man  regarded  as  an 
inferior  specimen  of  a  perfect  species.  All  ideals,  all  likes  and 


MODERN  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD 

dislikes,  all  beliefs  and  values  are  set  aside  for  the  sake  of  a 
neutral  and  objective  point  of  view.  We  are  supposed  to  be 
satisfied  with  the  facts  in  the  case. 


THE  SOCIAL  CHARACTER  OF  SCIENCE 

Science  is  a  natural  social  thing.  It  is  like  a  universal  language, 
or  music.  A  system  of  philosophy  is  for  an  individual  Plato  and 
the  Platonists;  Kant  and  the  Kantians.  A  system  of  polidcs  is 
broader  and  applies  to  nationalistic  groups  of  human  beings  in 
the  form  of  Democracy,  Fascism,  or  Sovietism.  Science  is  the 
Communism  of  the  human  intellect,  the  Ideal  Republic  of  free 
minds.  Its  laws  appeal  to  all  and  are  recognized  by  all  who  take 
a  rational  point  of  view;  its  laws  apply  to  all  phenomena  as  these 
are  found  in  time  and  space.  There  is  no  private  standpoint  left 
for  man,  no  special  consideration  shown  for  nature,  but  all 
thoughts  and  all  things  are  subject  to  scientific  law.  Science  is 
humanistic  in  the  way  that  it  furthers  man's  intellectual  ambitions 
and  enhances  his  powers.  It  came  into  being  at  a  time,  the  early 
modern  age,  when  on  all  sides  of  his  nature,  in  art,  religion,  and 
politics,  man  was  anxious  to  emancipate  the  spirit  within  him. 
To  extend  man's  view  and  enhance  his  lif  e  —  the  science  of  the 
day  is  a  highly  speculative  way  of  exploring  time  and  space, 
matter  and  mind,  the  whole  universe  and  the  atom;  it  is  a 
desperately  practical  way  of  inventing  machines  to  render  life  on 
earth  more  endurable.  When  we  speak  of  science  as  embracing 
all  nature  and  all  mankind  as  such,  we  begin  to  wonder  which  of 
the  pair  should  receive  the  emphasis,  the  outer  world  of  things 
or  the  inner  life  of  thoughts.  Where  is  the  place  of  knowledge, 
and  where  shall  science  be  found?  In  "facts"!  That  is  the 
popular  point  of  view  and  the  practical  estimate  of  science. 

**  The  facts  speak  for  themselves."  In  the  minds  of  most  people 
the  eloquence  of  existence  is  so  emphatic  that  the  mind  needs 
only  listen.  After  there  had  been  so  much  scholastic  reasoning 
and  so  little  actual  observation,  it  was  quite  natural  for  Bacon  to 
attempt  scientific  propaganda  in  the  form  of  downright  discovery, 
but  now  that  we  are  able  to  look  back  upon  the  development  of 
science  we  realize  that  mere  fact-finding  has  had  little  to  do  with 


IS  SCIENCE  SUBJECTIVE?  295 

it.  From  time  immemorial,  men  had  observed  that  bodies  float, 
sink,  or  are  partly  submerged  in  water,  but  it  was  Archimedes* 
thought  about  that  fact  which  gave  us  the  principle  of  a  body's 
specific  gravity.  And  just  as  long  had  men  noticed  that  apples 
and  other  things  tend  to  fall  to  the  ground,  but  it  was  Newton's 
mathematical  way  of  regarding  such  a  homespun  fact  that  gave 
us  the  principle  of  gravity.  At  the  present  time,  the  facts  in  the 
case  of  the  universe  at  large  and  the  situation  within  the  atom 
are  ascertained  by  such  refined  forms  of  observation  that  we 
suspect  there  is  more  to  the  observer  than  the  observed. 

When  science  deals  with  facts,  as  it  does  in  a  most  desperate 
way,  it  is  usually  careful  to  discriminate  among  the  multitude  of 
things  spread  out  before  its  gaze.  In  addition  to  that,  science 
does  not  simply  look,  but  is  on  the  lookout  for  its  facts;  where 
is  the  planet  or  chemical  element  or  plant  species  we  are  seeking? 
It  is  the  knowing  look  that  counts,  the  look  that  is  directed  by  the 
theoretical  powers  of  the  mind.  In  the  last  analysis,  nature  does 
supply  the  facts,  but  she  is  not  in  the  habit  of  thrusting  them  upon 
us.  Moreover,  nature  does  not  count  or  relate  or  reason.  These 
are  processes  that  go  on  in  the  human  mind,  which  insists  on 
seeing  a  connection  between  disconnected  phenomena,  as  the 
moon  and  tides,  malaria  and  the  mosquito.  Science,  then,  is 
man's  science,  the  work  of  his  reason. 

Is  SCIENCE  SUBJECTIVE? 

Is  science  subjective  or  objective?  Is  it  concerned  with  the 
thoughts  of  the  mind  or  the  things  of  the  world?  The  moment 
we  raise  that  question,  it  seems  to  answer  itself  in  terms  of  the 
objective;  natural  science  operates  on  the  outside  and,  as  it  were, 
in  behalf  of  nature.  When  we  consider  the  subject  matter  of 
science,  the  case  for  objectivity,  nature,  and  thinghood  seems 
complete.  How  is  man's  private  interest  concerned  or  what  has 
he  to  say  about  the  facts  in  the  case?  Has  not  modern  science 
given  up  ancient  idealism  and  mediaeval  dogmatism?  If  we 
were  to  heed  the  popular  and,  often,  professional  view  of  science, 
we  should  conclude  immediately  that  science  gave  everything  to 
nature  and  saved  nothing  for  man.  The  laws  of  matter  and 


MODERN  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD 

motion  are  naturistic,  not  humanistic;  they  concern  things  rather 
than  men.  In  drawing  the  scientific  picture  of  the  world,  man 
has  to  leave  himself  out.  Now,  there  is  so  much  about  science 
that  is  objective  and  so  much  matter-of-fact  outside  us,  we 
need  say  no  more  about  this  great  Not-ourselves.  It  can  take 
care  of  itself  now  just  as  well  as  it  did  before  it  produced  the 
human  brain.  It  is  ourselves  we  must  consider,  lest  we  be  sub- 
merged in  our  own  thought  about  the  universe. 

When  we  consider  ourselves,  we  observe  that  we  are  not  deal- 
ing with  a  science  that  merely  photographs  the  world  generally 
and  takes  snapshots  of  its  movements.  Our  modern  mental 
process  is  more  than  anything  else  a  scientific  method.  That 
method  is  our  own.  We  can  hardly  think  of  any  other  than  the 
scientific  one,  although  now  and  then  we  find  it  refreshing  to 
assume  an  artistic  or  religious  point  of  view.  As  for  scientific 
method  —  it  is  distinctly  human.  This  does  not  mean  that  we 
intend  to  relapse  into  anthropomorphism,  although  that  very 
human  way  of  thinking  keeps  dogging  our  steps.  What  we  do 
under  the  circumstances,  peculiar  to  the  fact  that  we  are  finite 
human  beings,  is  to  put  on  the  best  face  in  the  matter  and  make 
our  anthropomorphism  that  of  the  homo  sapiens.  We  give 
nature  the  best  man  that  is  in  us.  We  know  that  we  cannot 
leap  out  of  ourselves  and  become  pure  knowers  of  the  world, 
so  we  keep  enlarging  and  purifying  the  human  understanding. 
In  so  doing,  we  exercise  the  belief  that  the  view  of  the  world 
entertained  by  a  Newton,  a  Kant,  or  an  Einstein  will  be  good 
enough. 

In  addition  to  this  confessed  anthropomorphism  of  the  better 
sort,  we  admit  the  presence  of  the  human  quality  in  natural 
science  as  this  obtrudes  in  other  forms.  As  has  been  observed, 
we  take  results  of  nature  and  employ  them  for  human  benefit 
in  the  form  of  applied  science  which  ends  in  industry  and  its 
pleasant  fruits.  Is  not  that  a  species  of  humanism,  of  subjectiv- 
ism? In  addition  to  that  human  way  of  using  nature,  we  often 
make  our  feelings  the  models  for  natural  occurrences.  Energy  is 
something  that  we  ourselves  feel,  and  it  may  be  that  the  energy 
of  nature  is  not  at  all  akin  to  the  work  of  our  wills.  We  speak 
of  what  seems  to  be  going  on  in  the  natural  world  as  though  it 


IS  SCIENCE  SUBJECTIVE? 

were  a  struggle  for  existence  and,  again,  we  are  using  a  human 
analogy.  In  like  manner,  we  refer  to  the  affinity  between  chemi- 
cal elements  which  unite  here  but  not  there,  and  look  upon  this 
valence  somewhat  after  the  manner  of  our  own  preferences. 
Even  when  we  speak  broadly  of  the  conservation  of  energy,  we 
are  using  a  mode  of  expression  that  suggests  something  in  the 
way  of  human  thrift. 

In  larger  and  more  abstract  ways,  we  insinuate  our  human 
point  of  view  into  the  world  of  space  when  we  indulge  in  more 
than  one  kind  of  geometry.  In  the  narrow  realm  of  terrestrial 
magnitudes,  where  human  operations  like  surveying  and  building 
are  going  on,  we  prefer  the  old  Euclidean  geometry  with  just 
one  line  parallel  to  another,  but  when  we  raise  our  eyes  from 
earth  and  our  work  on  it,  we  find  it  expedient  to  adopt  a  non- 
Euclidean  form  of  spatial  measurement.  All  seems  to  depend 
upon  what  we  have  in  mind.  The  old,  anthropic  ideas  of  the 
world  still  hold  in  their  own  sphere,  or  in  what  the  most  ad- 
vanced science  calls  the  "  frame  of  reference."  We  live  and  act 
and  arrive  at  some  measure  of  truth  just  about  as  men  did  before 
modern  science  dawned  and  then  blazed  forth  so  blindingly. 
"  Even  today,"  says  Karl  Pearson,  "  we  all  go  through  the  greater 
part  of  our  thought  and  action  as  did  the  people  of  pre-Copernican 
days.  The  Ptolemaic  system  still  holds  as  a  valid  concept  in  a 
limited  range  of  phenomena/'  * 

The  human  point  of  view  shifts  with  ease  from  things  to  the 
connection  between  them  and  asserts  itself  in  the  domain  of 
causality.  If  the  universe  were  only  a  system  of  bodies  in  motion, 
like  billiard  balls  on  a  table,  we  should  have  no  trouble  with 
them,  but  things  are  magnetic  and  biologic  also.  Hence  we 
have  to  modify  the  idea  of  the  necessary  connection  between 
things  doubted  by  Hume  and  dogmatized  by  Kant.  No  longer 
can  we  say,  "  Out  of  this  particular  cause  comes  this  particular 
effect,"  but  "  From  these  general  conditions  result  certain  other 
general  consequences  of  an  appropriate  sort."  We  cannot  "  bind 
the  influence  of  the  Pleiades  or  break  the  bands  of  Orion";  all 
the  binding  and  breaking  that  we  do  must  take  place  within  our 
own  minds. 

s  Grammar  of  Science,  p.  385. 


2Qg  MODERN  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD 

^yu 

MAN  THE  MEASURER  OF  ALL  THINGS 

It  seems,  then,  that  even  in  science  man  cannot  eliminate  him- 
self, but  he  can  emancipate  his  mind  from  temperament  and 
prejudice.  His  mood  can  be  as  important  as  his  method.  The 
scientific  mind  dares  not  relapse  into  the  sophism  of  saying, 
"  Man  is  the  measure  of  all  things ";  but  it  must  use  a  sort  of 
scientism,  according  to  which  "  man  is  the  measurer  of  all  things." 
Science  is  measurement;  its  method  par  excellence  is  that  of 
mathematics,  and  this  is  man's  own  product.  Nature  does  not 
calculate  nor  weigh  nor  rationalize  herself  in  any  manner  what- 
soever. Hence,  when  we  say  certain  phenomena  are  "given," 
we  had  better  speak  of  them  as  "taken."  In  the  science  of 
geometry,  man  takes  space  out  of  the  whole  complexity  of  nature 
and  studies  it  as  dimensions.  He  pours  time  out  of  it  and  con- 
siders it  in  a  static  form.  Of  course,  there  is  no  such  space  in 
nature.  The  mass  of  a  body  is  just  as  fully  taken  out  of  the 
natural  order;  the  body  whose  mass  is  being  studied  is  under 
other  influences  than  that  of  gravitation,  but  these  others  are  set 
aside  theoretically  in  order  that  mass  may  be  known.  This 
knowing,  as  we  are  calling  it,  is  measuring,  human  measuring, 
the  discovery  of  Arabic  numerals  in  the  things  of  this  world. 
"  We  have  found,"  says  Eddington,  "  where  science  has  pro- 
gressed the  farthest,  the  mind  has  but  regained  from  nature  that 
which  the  mind  put  into  nature.  We  have  found  a  strange  foot- 
print on  the  shores  of  the  unknown.  We  have  devised  profound 
theories,  one  after  another,  to  account  for  its  origin.  At  last  we 
have  succeeded  in  reconstructing  the  creature  that  made  the 
footprint  and  lo!  it  is  our  own."  4 

When  we  say  measurement  we  are  inclined  to  think  of  num- 
bers, but  it  means  more  or  less  than  that  according  to  the  way  we 
look  at  it.  Measurement  means  the  interrelation,  the  interlocking 
of  space  and  time;  not  space  in  the  sense  of  the  place  where  things 
are  found  nor  time  as  the  course  which  events  follow.  No,  sci- 
ence understands  space  and  time  in  the  form  of  relations;  the 
relation  of  coexistence  and  that  of  sequence.  Science  in  the 
strictly  modern  sense  began  when  Galileo  interrelated  space  and 

4  Spacej  Time  and  Gravitation,  p.  200. 


OUR  FOURTH  DIMENSION 

time  in  the  special  case  of  falling  bodies.  This  means  that,  as 
science  now  suggests,  we  must  superimpose  upon  or  fuse  into  our 
old  space-geometry  a  new  time-geometry.  Naturally  we  hate  to 
do  this  since  our  old  geometry  of  fixed  forms  was  so  reliable 
and  comfortable;  its  forms,  such  as  the  square  and  circle,  were 
there  waiting  for  us  to  draw  pictures  of  them  and  prove  proposi- 
tions about  them.  But  we  have  come  to  realize  that  these  forms 
have  to  be  generated,  so  that  the  flowing  point  draws  a  line,  the 
line  swings  around  into  a  plane,  and  the  plane  itself  makes  a 
swing  that  produces  the  solid.  At  any  rate,  that  is  the  way  it 
looks  to  those  who  stand  on  the  outside  of  the  mysterious  world 
of  mathematics. 

OUR  FOURTH  DIMENSION 

Now  all  this  brings  us  dangerously  near  the  question  of  the 
fourth  dimension  and  we  wonder  what  that  can  be.  It  strikes  us 
as  being  uncanny;  we  feel  that  we  have  no  "open  sesame"  to 
open  its  door.  However,  we  are  dealing  with  the  fourth  di- 
mension daily,  only  we  do  not  recognize  it  as  an  old  friend  like 
the  other  three.  We  are  told  that  the  fourth  dimension  of  space  is 
none  other  than  time,  which  seems  to  mean  that  length,  breadth, 
and  thickness  are  the  other  three  dimensions  of  space.  Our  main 
trouble  is  that  we  cannot  picture  a  four-dimensional  body  the 
way  we  picture  those  that  have  only  three.  We  can  see  those 
but,  at  best,  we  can  only  believe  that  time  is  added  to  them 
to  make  the  figure  complete.  Suppose  we  try  to  picture  different 
bodies  with  all  four  dimensions  included.  We  can  do  this  by 
visualizing  a  star,  a  stone,  a  tree. 

When  we  look  at  a  star,  we  see  only  two  dimensions  at  a  time, 
but  we  can  easily  add  the  third  one  by  thinking  of  the  star  as 
a  solid.  Can  we  not  add  the  fourth  by  thinking  of  it  still  an- 
other way?  We  can  do  this  by  realizing  that  the  light  which  for 
us  is  the  star  has  been  a  certain  number  of  years  on  its  way  to 
earth,  ten,  a  hundred,  a  thousand,  or  a  million,  and  can  realize 
further  that  the  star  is  we  know  not  exactly  how  many  millions 
upon  millions  of  years  old.  Are  we  not  seeing  or  at  least  appre- 
hending time  in  the  simple  act  of  seeing  space?  In  the  case  of 


300  MODERN  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD 

the  stone,  what  we  see  in  the  old  spatial  way  as  a  solid  is  really 
something  that  has  existed  we  know  not  how  many  thousands  of 
years.  And  these  years  we  see  in  a  way  when  we  look  at  the  aged 
stone.  In  the  case  of  a  tree  that  has  been  sawed  down  and  now 
exhibits  as  many  rings  as  it  has  lived  years,  we  behold,  as  Alex- 
ander points  out,  both  the  spatial  and  temporal  of  the  tree;  its 
three  usual  dimensions  and  the  unusual  one  of  time  which,  by 
the  way,  was  responsible  for  these.  In  most  cases,  when  we  are 
not  interested  in  gaining  a  complete  view  of  an  object,  we  omit 
the  fourth  dimension,  but  our  complete  experience  is  bound  to 
include  this.  The  table  at  which  we  sit  and  the  man  with  whom 
we  talk  seem  to  have  only  three  dimensions,  but  a  complete  view 
of  the  table  and  the  wood  of  which  it  is  made  and  the  real  nature 
of  the  man  who  has  grown  into  full  stature  involve  the  time 
factor.  Time  made  them  what  they  now  appear  to  be. 

SCIENCE  MORE  THAN  MEASUREMENT 

Science  is  measurement,  but  not  this  alone.  It  is  a  way  of 
reasoning  about  things,  a  method  of  obtaining  knowledge  that 
otherwise  would  remain  hidden.  If  we  think  in  terms  of  hun- 
dreds, we  have  no  need  of  arithmetic  save  as  this  puts  our  knowl- 
edge in  a  convenient  form;  but  if  we  try  to  deal  in  millions,  we 
find  it  necessary  to  resort  to  mathematics  for  our  ideas.  In  like 
manner,  if  we  are  considering  the  distance  between  two  points 
that  are  not  so  far  apart,  for  instance,  the  cities  of  New  York  and 
Philadelphia,  we  can  appreciate  the  space  between  them  by  our 
experience.  We  have  ridden  by  train  or  motored  or  even  walked 
from  one  of  these  cities  to  the  other,  so  that  the  idea  of  ninety 
miles  is  almost  superfluous;  it  is  only  a  symbolic  way  of  repre- 
senting what  we  already  know.  But  if  our  mind  tries  to  dwell 
upon  the  idea  of  the  distance  between  the  earth  and  Sirius,  it  has 
to  avail  itself  of  the  expression,  "  nine  light-years."  We  have  no 
impression  or  experience  or  intuition  capable  of  bringing  the 
celestial  distance  to  the  mind. 

The  same  ultimate  resort  to  mathematical  measurement  is 
made  in  the  dynamic  field.  One  knows  what  is  meant  by  twenty 
pounds,  since  he  can  easily  carry  that  much  weight. '  His  ex- 


THE  UNITY  OF  THINGS  301 

perience  he  can  enlarge  until  he  knows  the  meaning  of  a  hundred 
pounds  and  can  extend  his  sense  of  strain  until,  after  a  fashion, 
he  can  estimate  the  weight  of  a  ton.  But  when  the  problem  is 
to  weigh  the  earth  on  which  we  live  or,  worse  still,  to  arrive  at 
the  weight  of  the  sun  or  a  much  larger  star,  we  must  reason  by 
measuring  and  draw  real  conclusions  from  abstract  ideas.  This 
was  appreciated  by  science  at  the  beginning,  when  Kepler  ar- 
rived at  the  laws  of  planetary  motion  by  making  mathematical 
calculations  to  the  effect  that  the  radius  vector  of  a  planet  sweeps 
over  equal  areas  in  equal  periods.  But  when  Galileo  related  space 
to  time  in  the  case  of  falling  bodies,  it  seemed  as  though  the 
mathematical  form  of  this  perceived  fact  amounted  to  no  more 
than  drawing  out  what  the  mind  had  already  put  in.  Now,  the 
lay  mind  in  mathematics  is  in  the  habit  of  thinking  of  mathe- 
matics as  just  so  much  counting  up  of  what  one  already  has,  as  a 
kind  of  numbering  of  things.  But  even  the  lay  mind  is  now  in  a 
position  to  realize  that  measuring  means  more  than  computing;  it 
means  drawing  conclusions  that  could  be  arrived  at  in  no  other 
way.  We  are  forced  to  this  admission  by  what  is  being  accom- 
plished in  the  macroscopic  and  microscopic  orders  of  existence;  in 
the  stellar  universe  and  in  the  atom.  Now  the  grand  conclusion 
that  may  be  drawn  from  measurement  is  that  of  the  unity  of 
the  world. 

THE  UNITY  OF  THINGS 

As  soon  as  we  raise  the  issue  of  unity  in  nature  a  question  is 
bound  to  arise:  where  does  this  mysterious  unity  come  from? 
Is  it  a  kind  of  center  in  the  circle  of  all  reality?  That  looks  very 
much  like  our  human  geometry.  Is  it  the  main  office  or  clearing 
house  of  energy?  That  seems  like  a  human  institution.  Now 
science,  be  it  remembered,  is  more  a  matter  of  method  than  of 
material;  or  as  Karl  Pearson  says,  "  The  unity  of  all  science  con- 
sists alone  in  its  method,  not  in  its  material." 5  This  method  is 
our  own  human  method;  nature  goes  her  own  way  and  carries 
out  her  operations  to  perfection.  We  consider  these  and  express 
the  whole  matter  in  the  form  of  unity.  This  author  whom  we 

5  Grammar  of  Science >  p.  12.. 


302  MODERN  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD 

have  quoted  goes  on  to  say  further  that  the  universality  and  abso- 
luteness of  scientific  law,  conditioned  as  it  is  by  the  perceptive 
and  reflective  faculty  in  normal  human  beings,  is  relative  to  the 
human  mind.  We  behold  the  unity  of  nature  after  we  have  ob- 
served the  unity  of  knowledge. 

How  is  this  human  unification  of  the  natural  order  brought 
about?  We  do  not  draw  a  circle  around  the  universe  with  earth 
as  the  center.  We  do  merely  feel  or  intuit  unity  as  a  suitable 
ideal  for  Creadon;  if  we  ever  do  this,  it  is  for  the  sake  of  the 
inspiration  that  comes  from  the  feeling  that  nature  is  one  and  we 
are  one  with  It.  Our  method  of  getting  at  the  unity  of  things  is 
chiefly  by  the  organization  of  our  sciences.  Of  these  we  have 
four,  assignable  to  a  double  pair  of  twins — physics  and  chemistry, 
biology  and  psychology.  Above  these  four  arches  and  superin- 
tends our  method,  which  is  that  of  mathematics.  Beneath  that 
firmament  of  mathematical  forms  are  two  different  sorts  of 
sciences,  and  these  come  up  for  measurement.  Physics  yields 
forms  of  energy;  chemistry,  kinds  of  matter;  biology,  organisms; 
and  psychology,  these  organisms  looked  at,  as  it  were,  from  the 
inside.  How  can  we  unify  these  four  sciences  under  the  form  of 
the  mathematical  abstraction  we  have  set  up  as  a  norm;  how 
measure  them  according  to  some  common  denominator?  We 
cannot.  That  is,  we  have  not  been  able  to  run  the  mathematical 
line  through  all  four  of  them.  It  starts  out  well  enough  with 
physics  and  chemistry,  but  becomes  a  kind  of  dotted  line  indica- 
tive of  direction  but  not  distance  when  it  presses  on  into  the  bio- 
logical and  psychological  sciences. 

But  let  us  observe  clearly  what  the  modern  man  is  trying  to  ac- 
complish by  the  unification  of  nature.  He  does  not  dream  of 
dividing  the  universe  up  into  four  distinct  fields  and  placing  them 
side  by  side.  He  does  not  attempt  to  arrange  them  in  the  form 
of  a  four-story  edifice  with  physics  at  the  bottom  and  psychology 
at  the  top.  Nature  does  her  own  arranging,  her  own  building. 
All  that  we  can  do  is  to  watch  nature  and  unify  our  separate 
sciences  as  best  we  can.  We  are  to  proceed  from  the  mood  to  the 
method  of  unity.  We  do  this  by  thinking  clearly  and  cogently 
about  our  subject  matter  as  we  perceive  it.  This  gives  us  our 
sciences,  and  nature  knows  nothing  about  them.  The  result  of 


THE  SCIENTIFIC  PARADOX 

our  attempts  at  unification  is  more  like  a  republic  of  scientific 
minds  than  a  kingdom  of  science.  When  we  realize  that  it  is 
man  working  with  a  yardstick  and  not  nature  operating  with  a 
light-ray,  we  appreciate  our  problem  more  keenly,  more  fully. 
Here  we  must  be  prepared  for  paradox. 

THE  SCIENTIFIC  PARADOX 

The  heavens  give  us  no  trouble.  The  stars  in  their  courses 
may  have  fought  against  Sisera,  but  they  carry  on  no  warfare  with 
science.  Our  trouble  is  with  ourselves,  our  bodies  and  minds. 
They  bother  us  both  morally  and  mathematically,  for  we  have 
as  much  trouble  in  measuring  their  processes  as  we  have  in  ruling 
their  tendencies.  They  are  as  irrational  as  they  are  immoral. 
The  paradox  is  this:  the  farther  away  things  are  both  physically 
and  psychologically,  the  nearer  they  are  mentally,  and  vice  versa. 
We  can  depend  upon  a  star,  a  planet,  and  even  a  comet,  but  we 
cannot  depend  upon  organisms.  There  is  no  telling  what  organ- 
isms are  like  or  what  they  will  do.  Physics  and  chemistry  are 
foreigners,  but  we  have  made  friends  of  them.  Biology  and  psy- 
chology are  of  our  own  kith  and  kind,  but  we  cannot  come  to 
an  understanding  with  them.  Marvelous  to  relate,  the  most 
perfect  science  is  astronomy;  the  least  perfect  is  psychology.  We 
have  no  interest  in  stars  nor  they  in  us,  but  we  understand  them; 
we  rejoice  in  accurate  observations,  definite  measurements,  and 
a  high  degree  of  predictability.  We  have  all  interest  in  our  sen- 
sations, but  the  best  we  know  about  them  is  that  we  feel  them. 
Doubtless  this  is  the  reason  why  astronomy  was  the  first  sci- 
ence to  be  developed,  psychology  the  last.  When  it  comes  to 
a  question  of  measurement,  there  is  no  comparison  between 
them. 

Our  trouble  is  with  the  earth  or  its  leading  citizens.  The  physi- 
cal and  chemical  are  everywhere  in  the  universe;  the  biological 
and  psychological  are  here  on  the  earth  alone.  It  may  be  that 
the  principles  of  measurement  that  apply  so  grandly  to  the  uni- 
verse at  large  may  be  made  applicable  to  the  infinitesimal  amount 
of  life  in  the  universe,  6ut  it  does  not  seem  likely  that  the  mathe- 
matics that  is  ready  to  go  out  to  tie  infinite  is  as  willing  to  adapt 


MODERN  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD 

itself  to  such  a  vulgar  fraction  of  things  as  life.  There  is,  of 
course,  the  general  relation  of  more  and  less,  large  and  small,  but 
this  is  not  anything  like  the  impressive  system  of  mathematical 
powers  and  decimal  places  that  we  find  in  the  inorganic  world. 
And  it  is  with  the  inorganic  that  our  mathematics  finds  a  home, 
not  in  life,  certainly  not  in  us. 

We  must  decide,  if  we  can  and  if  we  dare,  whether  the  mathe- 
matical system  of  measurement  comes  right  down  to  us  in  our 
lives.  In  a  way  we  hope  it  will  stop  before  it  gets  to  us.  We 
must  decide  whether  such  a  federal  system  of  scientific  law  is 
repeated  in  the  local  ordinances  of  our  little  life-community.  We 
are  inclined  to  hope  that  it  does  not,  for  we  do  not  wish  to  bear 
the  weight  of  laws  meant  for  galaxies.  Is  there  one  scientific  law 
or  are  there  two;  do  we  find  the  same  law  with  only  different 
applications,  or  two  different  kinds  of  laws?  We  might  escape 
this  predicament,  as  is  so  often  done,  by  saying,  "  In  a  way  it 
does  and  in  a  way  it  does  not."  But  then  we  might  be  bothered 
by  the  question,  "  In  what  way  does  physical  law  apply,  in  what 
way  not?"  Or  we  might  say,  "Authorities  differ  on  this  sub- 
ject." But  then  we  should  have  to  meet  the  question,  "  In  what 
way  do  they  differ?  "  We  know  that  there  is  a  difference  be- 
tween life  and  inorganic  matter,  between  the  quick  and  the  dead, 
but  we  do  not  know  just  how  this  difference  will  figure  in  our 
sciences. 


PHYSICAL  AND  SOCIAL  SCIENCE 

The  attitude  of  those  who  work  in  the  sciences  seems  to  be 
something  like  this:  the  mechanists  in  physics  and  chemistry, 
being  sure  of  themselves  in  their  own  field,  are  inclined  to  conde- 
scend toward  the  would-be  mechanists  in  biology  and  psychology. 
They  presume  that  their  systems  of  measurement  apply  or  may 
come  to  apply  to  organic  realms  as  they  have  worked  so  splendidly 
in  the  inorganic  field.  In  this  spirit  of  toleration,  J.  Arthur 
Thompson  says,  "  In  regard  to  one  order  of  facts,  the  application 
of  scientific  methods  has  gone  far;  in  regard  to  another  order  of 
facts,  it  has  just  begun,  but  the  incipient  science  has  no  need  to 
be  ashamed  beside  her  full-grown  sister.  An  exact  science  is 


PHYSICAL  AND  SOCIAL  SCIENCE  305 

like  a  solar  system;  a  young  science  is  like  a  nebula."  e  But  this 
only  postpones  the  settlement  of  the  question  and  what  we  want 
is  a  more  immediate  answer  to  the  question,  are  organic  sciences 
just  like  inorganic  ones? 

The  would-be  mechanist  in  the  vital  field  will  assert  that  they 
are.  He  has  been  impressed  by  the  astounding  achievements  in 
physics  and  chemistry,  which  have  grasped  both  the  macroscopic 
and  the  microscopic  world,  and  desires  to  imitate  the  manners  of 
those  elder  sisters.  The  little  vitalist  is  like  Cinderella  longing  to 
attend  the  great  ball.  But  as  it  is  now,  biology  is  at  least  one 
remove  from  the  field  of  exact  measurement;  where  such  measure- 
ments are  made,  it  is  only  by  reducing  biological  processes  to 
physical  and  chemical  ones,  which  is  like  putting  one's  savings 
into  the  great  stock  market.  Psychology,  which  used  to  rejoice 
in  its  possession  of  the  knowledge  that  comes  by  introspection, 
follows  the  lead  of  biology  and,  mot  aussi,  wants  to  glean  a  few 
straws  from  the  rich  harvest  of  measurement.  The  result  in 
biology  is  mechanism,  which  dismisses  the  vital  process  as  such; 
in  psychology,  it  is  behaviorism,  which  has  made  headway  only 
by  throwing  out  consciousness. 

But  the  difficulty  with  such  a  vigorous  principle  o£  unification 
is  just  this — it  calls  upon  us  to  sacrifice  quality  to  quantity;  the 
quality  of  the  organic  to  the  quantity  of  the  inorganic.  Practi- 
cally everything  about  the  inorganic  world  of  physics  and  chemis- 
try can  be  appreciated  by  mere  quantification.  By  means  of  the 
how-much  we  can  measure  matter  in  gross  or  in  fine;  by  such 
means  we  can  also  manipulate  matter  in  building  and  engineer- 
ing. Matter  is  only  interesting,  useful  energy  and  we  have  no 
feeling  for  it.  Not  so  with  life,  for  life  is  in  us  and  we  in  it. 
Measuring  and  manipulating  are  all  very  well,  but  there  is  about 
life  something  that  we  experience  and  enjoy,  hence  the  idea  of 
measuring  seems  inadequate  and  disappointing.  In  particular, 
when  we  try  to  make  ourselves  the  measurers  of  all  things,  or- 
ganic and  inorganic,  we  find  that  our  vital  data  are  not  so 
definite;  they  have  not  the  stability  of  atoms.  They  drift  away 
from  our  measuring  rods,  hence  we  can  only  approximate  to  the 
quanta  we  are  seeking.  They  do  not  arrange  themselves  with 

6  Article  "  Science,"  Encyclopedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics. 


3o6  MODERN  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD 

the  precision  of  earth  and  sun  or  oxygen  and  hydrogen;  the 
relations  among  them  are  loose.  The  inorganic  world  runs  on 
tracks;  the  vital  order  does  not,  and  that  is  why  we  have  trouble 
in  calculating  its  processes. 

Now,  was  it  not  for  the  very  purpose  of  measurement  that 
early  modern  science  separated  the  secondary  qualities  from  the 
primary,  spatial  ones  in  order  that  these  might  become  the  subject 
matter  of  exact  science?  How,  then,  can  the  organic  sciences 
hope  to  neutralize  that  act,  how  return  to  the  state  of  affairs 
wherein  both  organic  and  inorganic  alike  were  treated  without 
sharp  discrimination  ?  Suppose  we  regard  an  organism  from  the 
standpoint  of  space;  the  geometrical  view  throws  little  light  upon 
the  nature  of  the  living  body.  Spatiality  is  the  very  genius  of 
inorganic  matter,  which  has,  we  might  say,  an  affinity  for  geome- 
try. Into  space,  matter  spreads  out  to  stellar  size;  by  space  it  is 
pervaded  down  to  the  very  atom.  But  spatiality  has  no  such 
significance  with  an  organism.  Or,  let  it  be  energy.  Inorganic 
matter  proceeds  by  expending  energy,  by  turning  it  into  heat  and 
diffusing  it.  Organisms  live  and  work  by  saving  energy;  by  stor- 
ing up  and  using  the  solar  energy  thrown  off  with  such  prodi- 
gality. If  it  is  a  question  of  mass,  so  important  with  matter,  the 
organism  is  under  such  an  incessant  process  of  change  that  we 
cannot  count  upon  any  stable  mass.  Both  organic  and  inorganic 
move  in  time,  but  movement  in  the  cell  is  not  the  same  as  move- 
ment in  a  molecule.  Both  matter  and  organism  are  capable  of 
work,  but  there  is  no  real  thermo-dynamics  of  the  steam  engine 
in  the  living  body.  The  temperature  at  which  it  does  its  work 
shows  that.  Indeed,  everything  about  the  organism  makes  it 
difficult  to  carry  out  the  classic  idea  of  "  measure  for  measure." 
Just  as  we  seem  to  have  reached  the  mathematical  summit  of 
things,  the  old  system  of  measurement  breaks  down.  To  appreci- 
ate that,  we  have  only  to  glance  at  the  rebellious  science  of  the 
XXth  century. 

RELATIVITY 

If  we  have  had  trouble  grasping  the  old  science,  what  hope  have 
we  with  the  new?    Or,  as  the  prophet  expressed  it,  "  If  thou  hast 


RELATIVITY  307 

run  with  the  footmen  and  they  have  wearied  thee,  then  how 
canst  thou  contend  with  horses?  "  We  were  just  on  the  point  of 
laying  hold  of  the  universe  when  now  it  seems  that  there  is 
nothing  substantial  to  seize.  At  last  we  had  grasped  the  atom, 
but  now  it  has  melted  into  the  electron,  and  as  for  the  old  space 
in  which  we  felt  so  much  at  home  —  even  that  has  failed  us.  We 
do  not  occupy  it  as  owners,  but  have  only  a  long  lease  on  it  since 
it  took  on  the  fourth  dimension  of  time.  What  we  used  to  call 
things  in  space  are  now  only  "  events  "  in  space-time,  and  the 
gravity  that  used  to  be  such  an  omnipotent  force  has  now  become 
a  matter  of  geometrical  form.  The  universe  has  left  us,  but  still 
it  seems  to  be  around.  The  whole  affair  seems  to  be  like  the 
situation  in  Faust  after  the  departure  of  Mephistopheles — "The 
Evil  One  has  departed,  but  Evil  still  remains."  This  state  of 
affairs  is  summed  up  in  the  word  "  Relativity  "  !  We  must  solve 
that  acrostic  if  we  can. 

Relativity  of  what?  we  ask.  Not  of  mind  or  knowledge  or 
man  or  anything  in  particular  but  just  this:  relativity  of  measure- 
ment. Now  that  is  somewhat  encouraging  because  we  agreed 
with  ourselves  when  we  took  up  the  perplexing  problem  of 
science  to  consider  it  a  system  of  measurements.  The  shadow  of 
Mephistopheles  is  still  with  us  and  we  will  try  to  discover  its 
length.  Suppose  we  lean  on  the  old  scientific  symbol  or  mono- 
gram of  C.  G.  S.  —  the  centimeter-gram-second  system  of  meas- 
urement. The  centimeter  means  space,  the  gram  matter,  and  the 
second  time.  Then  Relativity  will  mean  a  new  way  of  measuring 
space,  matter,  and  time.  After  we  have  once  adjusted  ourselves 
to  our  new  world,  our  world  of  Relativity,  we  shall  be  in  a  mood 
to  consider  gravity.  These  four  things  will  be  the  north,  south, 
east,  west  of  our  new  sphere. 

From  time  immemorial,  space  had  been  looked  upon  as  a  box 
or  general  container  of  things.  Galileo  made  modern  science 
possible  by  changing  space  into  a  geometrical  thing,  or  mode  of 
measurement.  Newton  regarded  it  as  the  absolute  background 
of  movement,  and  after  his  days  scientists  filled  it  up  with  what 
they  called  "ether."  The  peculiar  thing  about  it  was  that  it 
could  be  made  infinite  or  infinitesimal,  macroscopic  or  micro- 
scopic, large  enough  for  any  possible  universe  or  small  enough 


MODERN  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD 

for  any  atom.  Space  seemed  to  fit  matter  very  loosely;  indeed, 
the  amount  of  occupied  space  was  so  small  as  to  be  inconspicuous. 
The  universe  seemed  like  a  town  all  mapped  out  but  not  built 
up.  The  older  science  was  so  interested  in  the  process  of  build- 
ing up  that  it  let  the  rest  of  the  universe  go  by  with  the  cavalier- 
like  assumption  that  space  extends  in  all  directions  to  what  it 
called  "  infinity."  But  Relativity  has  changed  all  that. 

Relativity  tells  us  that  space  is  not  absolute  or  infinite  in  itself; 
it  warns  us  that  space  is  not  independent  of  time  or  matter. 
Space  is  not  absolute  in  the  sense  that  an  object  is  here  or  there; 
it  is  neither  here  nor  there;  all  we  know  about  its  location  is  that 
it  is  just  so  far  from  other  objects.  Space  has  now  become  an 
interrelated  mesh  of  distances.  Position  is  not  everything;  in  fact 
it  is  not  anything,  since  it  is  distance  that  counts.  The  space  that 
is  supposed  to  contain  matter  is  not  infinite.  If  it  were,  it 
would  exhaust  and  reduce  to  nothingness  the  matter  that  radiates 
out  into  it.  If  we  think  of  matter-energy  as  a  fire,  we  realize  that 
it  can  heat  a  large  room,  but  not  all  outdoors.  Nor  is  space  in- 
dependent of  time,  for  we  cannot  get  the  position  of  an  object 
unless  we  know  the  date  when  it  is  supposed  to  be  there.  All 
that  we  get  out  of  the  state  of  affairs  is  an  "  interval,"  a  term 
applicable  to  space  or  time  taken  together  in  a  unity. 

THE  SPACE-TIME  CONTINUUM 

As  long  as  the  new  system  of  measurement  is  thought  of  in 
relation  to  such  things  as  galaxies  and  atoms,  it  does  not  bother 
us,  but  when  it  lays  hold  of  yardsticks  and  clocks  we  begin  to 
feel  concerned.  For  this  is  what  Relativity  does;  it  disobeys  the 
commandment  "Thou  shalt  not  remove  thy  neighbor's  land- 
mark." It  did  just  this  with  the  landmarks  of  the  old  physics, 
which  consisted  of  rigid  measuring  rods  and  steady  clocks. 
When,  under  the  auspices  of  the  classic  system,  Michelson  at- 
tempted to  measure  the  motion  of  the  earth  through  the  station- 
ary ether,  no  motion  was  discernible.  The  line  that  represented 
the  direction  of  the  motion  was  just  as  long  as  the  one  drawn  at 
right  angles  to  it,  when,  of  course,  it  should  be  shorter.  But  the 
theory  of  Relativity  was  equal  to  the  emergency;  it  took  the  body 


MATTER  AND  GRAVITY 

to  be  measured  and  put  it  into  a  Procrustean  Bed,  which  it  called 
a  "  frame  of  reference."  The  body  to  be  measured  was  stretched 
out  or  shortened  as  the  exigencies  of  mathematics  demanded. 
When,  therefore,  a  body  is  moving  at  a  high  rate  of  velocity,  the 
measuring  rod  on  it  contracts  in  the  direction  of  that  motion,  so 
that  it  is  still  a  yard  or  mile  or  light-year,  but  in  a  contracted 
form  due  to  the  direction  of  its  motion.  This  was  called  the 
Fitzgerald  Contraction,  and  it  was  remarkable  that  the  amount 
of  it  should  have  been  equal  to  the  shortening  which  the  experi- 
ment demanded.  It  looked  as  though  the  scientist  were  play- 
ing a  trick  on  the  layman  or,  worse  still,  as  though  nature  were 
playing  a  much  larger  trick  on  the  scientist.  Later  on,  it  was  in- 
sisted that  the  electronic  structure  of  matter,  which  took  away  its 
old-time  rigidity,  made  such  a  foreshortening  actually  possible, 
and  the  fixed  yardstick  was  supplanted  by  a  more  flexible  one. 

The  old-time  clock  was  affected  in  the  same  way.  It  was  not 
that  clocks  vary  in  their  way  of  keeping  time,  but  that  the  time 
they  keep  undergoes  change.  When  a  moving  body  increases 
its  velocity,  the  passage  of  time  on  that  body  becomes  longer  to 
compensate  for  this,  so  that  a  clock  on  that  swift-moving  body 
runs  slower  when  its  hours  are  measured  from  a  second  body 
moving  with  less  speed.  All  the  clocks  on  the  earth  may  run  at 
the  same  rate  of  speed,  but  from  that  chronological  fact  it  does 
not  follow  that  they  synchronize  with  the  clocks  on  the  planet 
Mars.  There  is  no  simultaneity  or  absolute  Now.  There  is  no 
fixed  rate  of  duration  in  a  system  of  things  where  various  bodies 
move  at  different  velocities.  There  is  no  absolute  coexistence 
of  events,  since  from  the  point  of  view  of  some  other  part  of  the 
universe  our  "simultaneous"  may  become  their  "before  and 
after."  It  is  only  within  a  particular  or  local  frame  of  reference, 
such  as  the  earth,  that  we  can  maintain  coexistence  in  space  and 
simultaneity  in  time. 

MATTER  AND  GRAVITY 

Our  idea  of  matter  has  had  to  undergo  parallel  changes  and 
these  have  been  observed  in  what  we  have  had  to  say  about  space 
and  time  and  in  the  new  yardsticks  and  clocks  we  have  used 


3IO  MODERN  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD 

Matter  is  no  longer  the  stuff-like,  doughy  thing  it  used  to  be.  Its 
nature  is  distinctly  porous.  We  knew  that  when  we  considered 
how  the  universe  was  chiefly  empty  space  for  all  the  stellar  sys- 
tems that  tried  to  occupy  it  here  and  there.  We  learn  that  when 
we  are  taught  that  an  atom  is  a  kind  of  solar  system  whose 
porosity  is  akin  to  that  of  the  universe  at  large.  Since  matter 
does  more  than  occupy  space  and  move  in  space,  it  is,  as  we  might 
expect,  something  energetic,  so  that  we  are  not  wholly  surprised 
to  learn  that  it  is  made  up  of  electrical  charges  rather  than  grains 
of  materiality.  Now  all  these  revisions  in  the  fields  of  space, 
time,  and  matter  are  bound  to  affect  our  view  of  the  most  inclu- 
sive law  of  the  universe  — the  Law  of  Gravity. 

After  Newton  had  elaborated  the  Law  of  Gravity,  which  he  did 
in  a  surprisingly  simple  form,  there  were  certain  things  about  it 
that  seemed  strange.  If  the  law  was  supposed  to  control  a 
u  force "  of  nature  and  regulate  a  "  pull "  of  some  sort,  it  was 
really  too  good  to  be  true.  In  the  first  place,  it  was  omnipresent 
and  had  none  of  the  local  and  specific  qualifications  of  natural 
laws,  such  as  those  of  heat,  light,  magnetism,  and  the  like.  Then, 
it  acted,  as  it  were,  instantaneously,  as  though  it  were  not  satisfied 
with  even  the  high  velocity  of  light.  Finally,  it  was  a  force,  or 
the  like,  that  could  not  be  interfered  with.  We  can  screen  a  body 
from  the  light,  shield  it  from  heat,  and  insulate  it  from  electricity, 
but  there  is  no  such  screening  or  shielding  or  insulating  in  the 
case  of  gravity.  It  goes  on  in  a  manner  strangely  independent  of 
things  to  which  it  adapts  itself,  noblesse  oblige,  with  perfect  in- 
difference as  to  the  constitution  or  condition  of  these  things. 

What  has  Relativity  done  to  gravity?  It  has  taken  the  teeth 
out  of  the  law;  that  is,  it  has  made  it  unnecessary,  aye,  impossible, 
for  us  to  regard  it  as  a  force  of  any  kind.  In  general,  we  may 
think  of  gravity  as  a  phase  of  the  space-time  framework  that 
makes  up  our  universe  or  as  the  status  quo  of  things  in  general. 
If,  then,  we  inquire,  "  What  has  become  of  the  fi  force '  of  grav- 
ity? "  we  are  told  that  it  means  increased  curvature  in  the  path 
that  a  body  follows.  The  old  gravity,  so  to  refer  to  it,  was  indif- 
ferent to  matter,  but  this  is  not  the  case  with  the  new  space,  as  we 
may  style  it.  Space  and  matter  have  gone  into  partnership  and 
have  taken  gravity  in  with  them,  also.  If  there  were  no  matter, 


THE  NEW  ATOM 

the  universe  would  be  flat  and  motionless.  If  the  universe 
were  all  matter,  it  would  be  a  tightly  wound  sphere  in  ceaseless 
motion.  But  where,  as  is  the  case,  there  is  some  matter,  we  find  a 
kind  of  wrinkled  space  or  a  combination  of  the  flat  and  the  curved. 
What  were  the  losses  and  gains  in  passing  over  from  the  XlXth 
to  the  XXth  century?  We  yielded  the  idea  that  gravity  was  a 
property  or  gift  of  matter  whereby  it  was  able  to  exert  a  strange 
pull  on  things.  We  have  acquired  the  notion  that  where  there 
is  matter  in  the  space-time  framework  it  produces  curvature  in 
that  structure,  or  gives  it  a  wrinkle.  When  we  apply  these  con- 
trasted views  to  the  solar  system,  we  find  that,  as  Bertrand  Russell 
expresses  it,  "  The  sun  is,  so  to  speak,  at  the  summit  of  a  hill,  and 
the  planets  are  on  the  slopes.  They  move  as  they  do  because  of 
the  slope  where  they  are,  not  because  of  some  mysterious  influence 
emanating  from  the  summit." T 

THE  NEW  ATOM 

Now  we  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  idea  that  science  is  primarily 
a  question  of  measurement.  That  golden  thread  we  have  tried 
to  follow  throughout  the  history  of  mankind,  especially  in  the 
great  scientific  eras  —  the  Newtonian  and  Einsteinian.  When  we 
followed  the  thread  into  Relativity,  it  tangled  terribly;  and  now 
that  we  come  to  the  atomic  world,  it  threatens  to  snap  like  the 
thread  of  the  Norns  in  Wagner's  Twilight  of  the  Gods.  Rela- 
tivity in  the  macroscopic  universe  meant  confusion.  Quantum 
Physics  in  the  atomic  world  means  "confusion  worse  con- 
founded." We  will  approach  this  tantalizing  subject  by  making 
the  random  statement  that,  as  atoms  had  always  existed  in  dis- 
crete or  separatist  forms,  it  was  to  be  expected  that  the  energies 
radiating  from  them  would  operate  in  the  same  way.  That  ap- 
pears to  be  the  essence  of  the  Quantum  Theory  —  that  atomic 
energy  goes  by  leaps  and  bounds,  rather  than  in  accordance  with 
the  old  rule  in  mundo  nan  datur  saltus.  Hence  we  are  forced  to 
avail  ourselves,  as  others  have  done,  of  the  idea  that  atomic 
energy  proceeds  according  to  a  kind  of  staircase  instead  of  a  ramp, 
and  goes  forth  by  drops  instead  of  in  a  stream. 

7 Article  "Relativity:  Philosophical  Consequences,"  Encyclopedia  Britannica* 


3I2  MODERN  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD 

The  atom  in  its  porosity  has  been  compared  to  the  solar  system, 
with  the  proton  for  the  sun  and  the  electrons  for  the  planets. 
This  analogy  helps  us  for  a  while,  but  when  we  dwell  upon  it 
at  any  length  we  observe  that  the  laws  of  the  macroscopic  order 
do  not  descend  to  the  microscopic  one,  or  the  little  solar  system  is 
anarchistic  in  its  attitude  toward  the  larger  one.  The  electrons 
are  the  real  wanderers,  or  planets,  in  the  universe  of  matter.  They 
have  their  orbits  but  do  not  stick  to  them;  they  seem  to  pass 
jauntily  from  one  orbit  to  another  without  having  been  any 
place  between  orbits.  These  jumps  seem  to  depend  upon  the 
amount  of  energy  involved.  When  the  electron  absorbs  energy 
it  approaches  the  proton,  but  when  it  radiates  its  energy  it  follows 
an  orbit  farther  away. 

When  it  comes  to  computing  atomic  energy  and  indicating 
electronic  paths,  the  question  of  measurement  becomes  a  painful 
one.  The  measuring  rod  is  the  light-ray.  Under  ordinary  cir- 
cumstances, or  with  large  objects,  we  have  no  trouble  with  the 
apparatus;  but  when  the  entity  under  measurement  is  of  the  same 
dimension  as  the  scale  employed,  the  difficulty  arises.  When  we 
attempt  to  study  the  behavior  of  the  electron,  the  light-ray  that  we 
use,  being  of  a  very  small,  finite  wave-length,  disturbs  the  ex- 
periment and  makes  it  impossible  to  get  definite  results.  This 
lack  of  definiteness  of  measurement  in  microscopic  nature  leads 
to  indeterminism;  we  cannot  be  sure  of  our  electrons  and  their 
orbits.  This  leads  to  a  statistical  view  of  nature.  At  first  the 
microscopic  world  appears  in  the  orthodox  fashion  of  being  with- 
out form  and  void;  a  state  of  affairs  in  which  the  atoms  or  mole- 
cules of  a  gas  may  have  all  possible  velocities.  But  by  using  a 
large  number  of  these,  we  arrive  at  the  appearance  of  Natural 
Law,  just  as  an  insurance  company  can  predict  how  many  mem- 
bers of  the  population  will  expire  at  the  age  of,  say,  forty-five, 
but  cannot  tell  just  who  they  may  be. 

MAN  REMAINS  UNCHANGED 

In  conclusion  it  might  be  suggested  that  the  new  physics  of 
Relativity  and  the  Quantum  Theory,  working  in  the  macroscopic 
and  microscopic  orders  respectively,  have  unsettled  the'  universe 


MAN  REMAINS  UNCHANGED 

rather  than  man.  Like  all  science,  this  new  departure  is  just  a 
question  of  measurement  and  man  is  still  able  to  maintain  him- 
self as  the  measurer  of  all  things.  All  depends  upon  his  position 
in  the  universe.  Once  he  has  settled  that,  he  can  let  the  universe 
pursue  any  velocity  it  chooses  and  suffer  things  to  assume  any 
size  they  prefer.  "  Our  measurements  of  space  and  time/'  says 
Karl  Pearson,  "  are  conditioned  by  our  assigning  to  ourselves  the 
velocity  zero,  and  by  our  basing  our  metrical  space  and  time  on 
phenomena  in  bodies  at  rest  relative  to  ourselves." 

This  makes  science  an  extremely  personal  matter  and  seems, 
also,  to  throw  us  back  upon  the  anthropomorphism  from  which 
science  had  promised  to  deliver  us.  Like  Hamlet  each  one  of  us 
can  say,  "  I  could  be  bounded  in  a  nutshell  and  count  myself  a 
king  of  infinite  space,"  for  that  is  about  the  way  the  microscopic 
and  macroscopic  universes  appeal  to  us.  As  for  the  anthropo- 
morphism that  follows  us  as  though  it  were  our  shadow,  we  may 
conclude  as  did  Socrates  when  he  was  informed  that  "man  is 
the  measure  of  all  things,"  that  under  such  circumstances  we 
should  be  careful  what  kind  of  man  we  choose  for  the  measurer. 
"  And  so,  Theodorus,  we  have  got  rid  of  your  friend  (Protagoras) 
and  have  not  yet  assented  to  his  doctrine  that  every  man  is  the 
measure  of  all  things  —  he  must  be  a  wise  man  who  is  the  meas- 
ure."8 In  our  case,  the  wise  man  happens  to  be  the  scientist 
and  we  let  him  be  the  measure  of  all  things. 

Is  man  standing  in  his  own  light  and  is  his  anthropomorphism 
defeating  his  rationalism?  It  might  seem  so,  but  that  is  not  the 
case  after  all.  For  there  is  a  method  of  correlating  all  these  an- 
thropic  measures  so  that  they  maintain  a  consistency  in  themselves 
and  point  to  a  more  fundamental  Absolute.  By  means  of  this, 
we  can  carry  our  calculations  from  one  system  to  another  just 
about  as  we  translate  ideas  from  one  language  to  another  in 
spite  of  verbal  differences  among  them.  The  wise  man  is  the 
interpreter  of  these  various  languages.  His  science  is  the  gift 
of  tongues.  His  language  is  scientific,  but  his  message  contains 
a  kind  of  philosophy. 

8  Thcaetetus,  183. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


EVERYMAN'S  PHILOSOPHY 

PHILOSOPHY  IS  OF  SUCH  A  VAGUE  CHARACTER  THAT  IT  SEEMS  TO 
exist  In  either  the  clouds  or  an  abyss.  Its  breadth  and 
depth  make  one  despair  of  mastering  it.  Yet  the  very  ex- 
tent and  profundity  of  philosophy  often  invite  the  intellect,  since 
the  mind  at  large  is  capable  of  moods  that  tend  to  range  over 
and  fathom  a  sea  of  speculation.  Man  is  more  often  philosopher 
than  scientist,  and  inclines  to  morals  rather  than  aesthetics.  His 
reflective  moods  tend  to  make  him  inquire  concerning  the  mean- 
ing of  things  and  the  value  of  his  own  experiences.  To  have  such 
experiences  with  the  things  of  this  world  and  enjoy  them  as  the 
issues  of  life  is  not  enough  for  even  the  average  man.  His 
thoughts  and  interests  come  up  before  his  mind  for  approval,  and 
so  he  philosophizes.  This  general  brooding  is  discernible,  al- 
though often  dimly,  in  the  minds  of  major  thinkers  like  Socrates 
and  Descartes,  Plato  and  Kant.  These  minds  availed  themselves 
of  logical  technique,  but  behind  this  as  though  it  were  casting 
shadows  was  vision,  or  a  certain  genius  for  truth.  Out  of  this 
at  last  came  the  ideas  of  Plato,  the  categories  of  Kant. 

All  of  us  are  "  philosophical  "  and  are  nobly  inclined  at  times  to 
take  things  "  philosophically."  We  are  in  possession  of  the  ad- 
jective and  the  adverb,  although  not  always  the  noun  and  the 
verb  of  the  subject  matter.  We  are  philosophical  when  we  ac- 
cept the  world  and  take  things  as  they  are.  Ourselves  we  treat 
philosophically  when  we  adapt  ourselves  to  the  vicissitudes  of 
individual  life  and  the  changes  that  take  place  in  the  exterior 
order.  "  O  well;  that's  the  way  things  are."  "  Such  things  are 
bound  to  happen."  When  one  talks  that  way,  he  is  not  far  from 
the  Kingdom  of  Philosophy,  although  the  hardest  part  of  the 
journey,  the  technical  phase  of  it,  is  now  in  front  of  him.  But 
when  one  stops  saying,  "As  I  see  it,"  or  "From  my  point  of 
view/*  his  philosophy  is  fairly  well  under  way  and  is  out  in  the 


NO  PHILOSOPHIC  FIELD  3x5 

offing.  One  has  arrived  at  the  fundamental  principle  in  all  phi- 
losophy: Universals!  Philosophy  itself  is  just  that  —  thinking  in 
terms  of  universals  rather  than  particulars.  The  philosopher  is 
not  content  to  observe  the  ideas  that  go  together  here  and  there; 
he  is  in  search  of  the  ideas  that  belong  together  everywhere. 

But  it  is  much  simpler  to  show  that  man  in  his  private  capacity 
has  a  certain  avidity  for  philosophical  reflection  than  to  indicate 
the  particular  ways  in  which  this  has  borne  fruit  in  the  field  of 
the  world,  in  culture  and  civilization.  Philosophy  tends  to  lay 
down  the  laws  of  logic  and  establish  the  entities  of  metaphysics, 
but  between  these  opposed  yet  similar  poles  extends  the  actual 
world  of  human  beings  in  which  the  Law  of  Identity  and  the 
Being  of  Things  are  lost  to  view.  "  Everything  is  beautiful  seen 
from  the  point  of  the  intellect,  or  as  truth,"  said  Emerson;  "  but 
all  is  sour  if  seen  from  experience.  In  the  actual  world,  the  pain- 
ful kingdom  of  time  and  place,  dwell  care  and  canker  and  fear." 
How  could  man  live  and  work  simply  by  declaring,  "  Whatever 
is,  is,"  or  "  Whatever  happens  has  a  cause  "?  And  yet  how  can 
he  really  live  unless  he  bears  these  laws  in  mind?  Man  cannot 
build  his  cities  just  by  repeating  the  axioms  of  geometry  on  which 
they  are  based.  But  in  the  final  analysis  the  axiomatic  and  self- 
evident  generally  are  victorious.  They  become  the  very  bulwarks 
of  being  and  the  true  orbits  of  activity. 

No  PHILOSOPHIC  FIELD 

The  peculiarity  of  philosophy  is  that  it  has  no  special  field  of 
investigation,  unless  we  are  willing  to  call  this  "  the  mind."  The 
physicist  has  matter,  the  chemist  the  atom,  the  biologist  the  cell, 
the  psychologist  consciousness  or  behavior.  Even  such  elusive 
things  as  aesthetics  and  religion  have  their  palpable  forms  of  art 
and  worship.  The  philosopher  is  ever  trespassing  on  the  pre- 
serves of  others.  He  attempts  to  theorize  about  the  fields  investi- 
gated by  their  rightful  owners.  He  gives  us  a  theory  of  physics 
in  the  form  of  metaphysics,  analyzes  the  ideas  of  matter  and 
mind,  and  attempts  a  philosophy  of  religion  and  art.  The  phi- 
losopher may  well  be  compared  with  the  lawyer.  Both  rejoice 
in  flexible  minds  adaptable  to  a  variety  of  subjects  not  one  of 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

which  Is  proper  to  philosophy  or  law.  The  lawyer  has  no  prop- 
erty, has  not  been  sued,  and  has  committed  no  crime,  but  he 
makes  the  deed,  the  suit,  and  the  defense  his  own.  He  knows 
the  law  and  applies  it  wherever  the  application  is  needed.  Like- 
wise, the  philosopher;  he  is  not  a  physicist  or  chemist,  a  psy- 
chologist or  artist,  but  he  knows  logic  and  is  in  a  position  to 
apply  the  laws  of  judgment  to  these  fields  of  nature  and  human 
life.  As  the  lawyer  can  tell  what  is  just  in  the  eyes  of  the  law, 
so  the  philosopher  can  tell  what  is  true  according  to  logic.  His 
philosophy  of  Idealism  and  Realism,  of  Rationalism  and  Em- 
piricism has  its  place  in  the  civilization  of  mankind. 

What  is  philosophy  ?  Definitions  are  often  vacua  which,  like 
nature,  man  should  abhor.  However,  we  may  venture  to  state 
that  philosophy  is  the  reasoning  that  seeks  tie  ground  of  the 
world  and  the  goal  of  life.  It  is  both  theoretical  and  practical; 
It  springs  from  the  intellect  and  leaps  forth  from  the  will;  it 
concerns  both  ultimate  thinking  and  the  deepest  source  of 
doing.  The  two  parts  of  it,  although  not  exactly  in  Siamese 
formation,  cooperate.  The  idea  of  something  quivers  with  a 
possibility  of  corresponding  action  —  food,  beauty,  a  new  conti- 
nent, Rome,  On  the  other  hand,  an  act  that  has  gone  forth  spon- 
taneously tends  to  revert  to  the  mind  and  seek  the  motive.  Why 
eat  or  carve  statues,  what  is  the  good  of  modern  America  or 
ancient  Rome?  Now,  the  actual  life  of  the  individual  goes  on 
with  only  flashes  of  ideation  and  touches  of  motivation,  just  as 
the  existence  of  States  proceeds  with  only  a  minimum  of  inquiry 
concerning  the  origin  and  destiny  of  an  Athens  or  Rome,  a  Ger- 
many or  America.  In  this  country  especially  is  man  most  heed- 
less of  the  foundations  on  which  individual  and  national  think- 
ing and  doing  are  built  up.  But  philosophy,  like  wisdom,  ever 
puts  forth  her  voice. 

THE  GROUND  OF  THINGS 

Now,  in  strict  philosophy,  the  ground  of  things  is  primarily 
physical;  the  search  for  it  raises  the  question,  is  the  last  word 
matter  or  mind,  one  being  or  many  things,  a  changeless  sub- 
stance or  a  deep  river  of  reality  known  as  Becoming?  In  like 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  INTELLECTUALISM 

manner,  the  philosophy  of  the  life-goal  is  ethical.  Does  man  seek 
pleasure  or  virtue?  Should  life  stress  the  social  or  the  individu- 
alistic ?  Out  of  this  double  question  have  come  systems  of  meta- 
physics, with  theories  of  knowledge  hovering  over  them,  and 
systems  of  morality  often  accompanied  by  aesthetical  and  reli- 
gious considerations.  Philosophy  itself  considers  its  field  from 
the  double  standpoint  of  forms  and  values;  the  forms  that  the 
intellect  lays  down  as  ideas,  the  values  it  aligns  as  interests.  Of 
course,  we  cannot  be  philosophizing  all  the  time.  That  would 
be  a  case  of  "  all  carving  and  no  meat."  But  if  we  neglect  phi- 
losophy and  live  our  individual  and  national  life  without  funda- 
mental thinking,  it  will  amount  to  "  all  meat  but  no  carving." 

For  our  present  purpose,  it  will  be  most  feasible  to  consider 
philosophy  from  the  standpoint  of  its  twenty-five  hundred  years 
of  history.  This  should  have  some  significant  lessons  for  us. 
But  here  we  could  not  gain  our  desired  insight  by  mentioning  the 
names  of  philosophers  and  the  ideas  for  which  they  stood.  We 
cannot  hope  to  succeed  in  the  interpretation  of  philosophy  even 
if  we  trace  the  course  of  speculative  schools,  the  streams  in  which 
the  major  thinkers  jutted  out  and  changed  the  course  of  the 
river.  We  must  proceed  broadly  and  identify  philosophy  mas- 
sively. In  it  we  must  observe  something  gigantic  in  its  influence 
upon  general  thought  and  scientific  investigation.  The  most 
obvious  thing  to  do  is  to  contrast  ancient  and  modern  philosophy. 

THE  SPIRIT  OF  INTELLECTUALISM 

Over  the  spirit  of  ancient  and  modern  philosophy  alike  broods 
the  spirit  of  intellectualism.  We  feel  that  it  could  hardly  be 
otherwise,  for  what  else  but  intellect  can  solve  problems?  How- 
ever, if  the  course  of  culture  had  been  like  the  course  of  civiliza- 
tion, and  the  Hebrews  and  Romans  instead  of  the  Hindus  and 
Greeks  had  directed  it,  the  philosophy  of  the  western  world 
might  have  been  not  Rationalism,  but  Pragmatism.  Europeans 
would  have  built,  or  tried  to  build,  their  philosophies  upon  prac- 
tical consequences  instead  of  primary  principles.  Science,  like- 
wise, might  have  concerned  itself  with  practical  projects  upon 
earth  instead  of  theoretical  patterns  in  the  skies  or  in  space  itself. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Rationalism,  with  its  belief  in  the  supremacy  of  the  intellect,  has 
given  us  philosophy  and  science  as  such;  if  we  can  discover  no 
special  services  that  speculation  has  rendered,  we  can  at  least 
credit  it  with  this  — with  intellectualism.  It  is  something  that 
has  come  down  to  us  along  the  Indo-Graeco-Germanic  line,  and 
the  logos  that  we  enjoy  has  been  in  word  and  idea,  in  philology 
and  philosophy. 

Greek  philosophy,  wholly  independent  in  origin  and  develop- 
ment from  such  Hindu  systems  as  the  Vedanta  and  Sankhya, 
proceeded  according  to  forms,  patterns,  ideas.  Even  at  the  be- 
ginning, when  it  was  only  a  crude  naturalism,  thinkers  like  Thales 
and  Anaximenes  sought  form  in  some  inclusive  principle, 
as  water  or  air.  Later,  after  philosophy  had  been  discon- 
certed by  the  dispute  between  Parmenides  and  Heraclitus,  think- 
ers like  Pythagoras  and  Anaxagoras  sought  anew  for  the  ever- 
lasting form  in  number  or  nous,  meaning  mind.  But  it  was 
Socrates  who  made  the  question  of  form  definite  and  articulate. 
True  thinking,  taught  he,  is  formal;  it  proceeds  from  general 
principles.  It  does  not  consist  in  what  some  one  here  or  there 
may  think,  but  in  that  which  every  one  everywhere  must  think. 
There  can  be  no  knowledge,  he  insisted,  without  universal  defi- 
nitions. Hence,  when  Socrates  gathered  a  group  of  disciples 
about  him  and  explained  how  knowledge  consists  of  class  terms 
or  universals,  the  deed  was  done.  The  scattered  details  of  things, 
the  temperament  of  a  man,  the  leaf -formation  of  a  tree,  or  the 
characteristics  of  a  unique  city  like  Athens,  were  ignored.  In 
place  of  Alcibiades,  the  elm,  or  Athens,  the  Socratics  were  ex- 
pected to  think  about  Man,  Tree,  City.  Now,  it  is  only  com- 
mon sense  and  everyday  experience  that  saved  men  from  the 
empty  urtiversalism  of  Socrates. 

Plato  proceeded  further  and  built  up  the  city  of  philosophy 
that  Socrates  had  planned.  "  If  there  is  to  be  knowledge,  there 
must  be  universals  "  —  so  spake  Socrates.  "  If  these  universals 
are  to  be  true,  they  must  be  real!  "—-thus  spake  Plato.  Such 
high-handed  procedure  does  not  seem  at  all  plausible,  but  if  we 
watch  our  own  faculty  of  knowledge  in  action  we  shall  begin 
to  realize  that  it  Platonizes.  All  of  us  tend^  to  use  universals 
when  we  speak;  we  make  mention  of  the  forest  and  overlook  its 


PLATO  AND  ARISTOTLE 

elms  and  oaks.  We  speak  of  man  and  pay  little  attention  to 
Peter  or  Paul.  We  prate  about  life  heedless  of  its  complications 
and  confusions,  and  talk  of  wealth  in  terms  that  are  innocent  of 
dollars  and  cents.  Our  dictionaries  are  Platonistic  in  that  they 
contain  words  that  cover  innumerable  instances.  Our  geographies 
map  out  sea  and  land,  river  and  mountain,  but  place  the  whole 
globe  upon  the  basis  of  the  imaginary  lines  of  latitude  and  longi- 
tude. Science  does  the  same  Platonistic  thing  when  it  refers  to 
what  it  calls  matter. 

PLATO  ANB  ARISTOTLE 

Plato  himself  presented  the  system  of  ideas  pictorially  in  the 
Allegory  of  the  Cave.  In  a  sort  of  underground  den,  its  mouth 
open  toward  the  light,  sit  men  so  shackled  that  they  cannot  be- 
hold the  blazing  light  outside,  but  must  content  their  vision 
with  the  shadows  of  things  as  these  are  reflected  upon  the  inner 
wall.  It  is  only  when  one  of  the  prisoners,  the  philosopher,  is 
able  to  unchain  himself  and  make  his  way  out  into  the  bright 
world  of  realities  that  he  and  subsequently  those  others  whom  he 
enlightens  know  things  as  they  are.  Then  the  mind  comes  into 
possession  of  true  knowledge  and  realizes  that  the  things  of  the 
sensible  world  are  "  seen  but  not  known  and  the  ideas  are  known 
but  not  seen."  One  sees  a  just  man,  but  knows  justice;  beholds 
a  beautiful  object,  but  thinks  beauty;  draws  a  square  or  a  circle, 
but  describes  the  absolute  geometrical  figures  in  a  way  which 
the  mind  alone  understands.  Plato  refers  to  these  ideas  as  "  exist- 
ing," but  in  strictness  of  language  they  should  be  spoken  of  more 
critically.  The  ideas  have  being,  they  subsist  or  obtain;  exist- 
ence is  only  that  kind  and  degree  of  reality  that  thrusts  its  way 
out  into  the  immediate  order  of  space  and  time. 

The  spell  of  Plato's  system  was  not  broken  by  Aristotle  even 
when  this  more  realistic  and  practical  thinker  did  not  readily 
assent  to  the  doctrine  of  ideas.  To  Aristotle,  the  idealistic  doc- 
trine, with  its  conception  of  heavenly  patterns  in  which  earthly 
things  participate,  seemed  more  metaphorical  than  metaphysical. 
Why  multiply  by  two  the  number  of  things  that  exist  by  adding 
their  ideal  realities  to  them?  And  what  evidence  is  there  that 


320          THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

such  Ideas  exist  and,  further,  what  possible  part  do  they  play  in 
the  workings  of  the  world?  But  Aristotle  did  not  really  reject 
Plato's  ideas.  He  connected  them  logically  in  the  form  of  judg- 
ments with  ideas  in  the  position  of  subject  and  predicate,  and 
further  employed  them  scientifically  to  show  how  nature  ar- 
ranges things  in  groups,  or  genera,  which  come  to  be  known  to 
us  in  the  form  of  class  terms,  such  as  vegetable,  animal,  man. 
But  it  is  in  his  idea  of  mind  active,  nous  porticos,  that  Aristotle 
is  most  eminently  Platonistic.  Active  mind  is  related  to  passive 
mind,  nous  pathetifys,  about  the  way  ideas  are  related  to  things; 
it  is  in  a  superior,  regal  position  and  itself  is  free  and  immortal. 
Like  Aristotle,  the  modern  thinker  only  appears  to  break  with 
ideas  of  Plato,  although  the  modern  with  his  scientific  culture 
and  civilization  has  made  various  changes  in  the  doctrine.  Ideas 
are  now  regarded  as  Relations,  which  look  different  but  have  the 
same  features  of  universality  and  necessity.  The  ancient  thinker 
said,  "Ideas  are  realities";  the  modern  reverses  the  order  of 
this  statement  and  changes  its  inward  character  when  he  says, 
"  Things  are  laws."  To  the  ancient  thinker,  reality  was  a  pat- 
tern such  as  an  artist  might  follow;  to  the  modern,  it  is  a  form 
of  procedure  which  a  scientist  observes.  The  spirit  of  the  an- 
cient thinker  was  nobly  dogmatic;  his  belief  in  the  existence  of 
ideas  made  him  so.  The  spirit  of  the  modern  is  just  as  critical; 
the  modern  watches  his  mind  and  its  object  and  keeps  changing 
his  psychology  and  physics.  Compare  a  modern  like  Kant  with 
an  ancient  like  Plato  and  let  German  meet  Greek.  What  is  the 
result?  Plato  asserts  that  there  are  eternal  ideas  in  the  world. 
Kant  insists  that  there  must  be  necessary  categories  in  the  mind. 
In  one  case  we  find  forms  of  being,  in  the  other  modes  of  think- 
ing. The  tone  of  ancient  thought  was  categorical,  that  of  the 
modern  hypothetical  In  a  certain  sense,  the  modern  idea  of 
philosophical  category  or  scientific  law  is  that  of  a  loosened  idea, 
or  an  idea  that  has  been  unwound  so  that  now  it  assumes  a  linear 
rather  than  a  circular  form.  In  this  we  find  the  True.  This  is 
not  the  True  in  the  ancient  sense  of  some  one  gigantic  fact;  the 
True  that  we  find  in  our  knowledge  is  chiefly  a  true  way  of 
thinking,  or  mental  metal  with  a  true  ring  to  it. 


THE  GOAL  OF  LIFE  321 

THE  GOAL  OF  LIFE 

In  practical  as  well  as  in  theoretical  thinking  we  are  able  to  dis- 
cern the  likeness  in  the  difference  between  ancient  and  modern 
thinking.  In  ethics,  the  ancients  created  the  ideas  of  the  Good 
and  Virtue;  the  moderns  have  developed  the  principles  of  Duty 
and  Conscience.  The  difference  between  the  modes  of  moral 
reasoning  in  these  cases  is  that,  where  the  ancient  spoke  of  his 
ethical  ideals  as  existing  things,  the  modern  refers  to  them  as 
things  that  ought  to  be.  In  this  modern  spirit,  Bishop  Butler 
referred  to  conscience  saying,  "  If  it  had  strength  as  it  has  right, 
if  it  had  power  as  it  has  authority,  it  would  absolutely  govern 
the  world."  In  a  similar  tone,  Kant  referred  to  the  Good,  not 
as  to  something  that  enjoyed  actual  existence,  but  as  to  that  which 
tended  to  operate  according  to  the  law  of  the  Categorical  Im- 
perative; hence  the  only  good  thing  in  the  world  is  the  good  will. 
Just  as  the  general  principle  of  modern  thinking  is  that  of  rela- 
tions between  things  rather  than  things  themselves,  so  the  mod- 
ern tendency  is  to  exalt  the  values  of  objects  and  institutions  or 
the  interests  we  have  in  them.  In  these  values  we  hope  to  find 
the  Good. 

The  practical  result  of  such  differences  in  ethical  thinking  will 
appear  best  if  they  are  stated  in  an  exaggerated  form.  The  an- 
cient moralist  rejoiced  in  the  solution  of  problems  he  had  never 
proposed;  the  modern  is  bothered  by  ethical  questions  he  cannot 
answer.  One  found  without  seeking,  the  other  seeks  without 
finding.  When  it  was  a  question  of  the  Good,  the  ancient  felt 
that  he  needed  only  a  little  intellectual  exercise  and  the  Good  was 
properly  defined.  The  modern,  on  the  contrary,  has  no  such 
clear  notion  of  goodness  but  he  is  anxious  to  promote,  to  enforce 
it.  So  is  it  with  the  softer  ideal  of  happiness.  The  ancient  be- 
lieved that  enjoyment  was  to  be  found  in  the  possession  of  the 
desired  object,  while  the  modern  has  to  be  satisfied  with  the 
pursuit  of  this.  The  supreme  commandment  in  the  old  world 
was  addressed  to  the  intellect.  "  So  think  as  to  know  tkyself !  " 
Such  was  the  Socratic  spirit  so  eminent  with  all  good  Greeks 
"  So  act  that  by  thine  act  of  williag  thou  canst  make  the  maxim 
of  thy  conduct  a  universal  law*"  Such  was  the  Kantian  spirit; 


322          THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

it  has  been  followed  generally  by  modern  moralists  even  when 
they  have  not  shared  Kant's  rigoristic  ideal.  One  observes  it  in 
hedonist,  utilitarian,  and  social  moralist.  The  difference  thus 
observable  in  this  sketched  contrast  of  ancient  and  modern  ethics 
is  that  of  thinking  ethically  and  doing  morally. 

ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  ART 

The  same  contrast  between  the  categorical  tone  of  the  classic 
thinker  and  the  hypothetical  mood  of  the  modern  one  appears 
in  the  two  types  of  aesthetic  consciousness.  State  it  broadly  and 
you  have  this  — the  ancient  had  art,  the  modern  has  aesthetics. 
The  divergence  is  that  of  the  creative  and  the  critical,  the  ob- 
jective and  the  subjective,  beauty  and  taste.  It  could  hardly 
have  been  otherwise.  Ancient  art  was  formal  and  plastic;  it  ex- 
pressed itself  primarily  in  architecture  and  sculpture.  Even  its 
poetry  and  drama  seem  to  have  been  built  or  carved  out,  hence 
the  exactness  of  its  verse  and  the  severe  unities  of  its  drama.  The 
prevailing  ideal  was  that  of  imitation,  the  copy  of  an  object  or 
Platonistic  imitation  of  the  idea.  The  result  was  something 
static;  the  object  betrays  scarcely  any  motion  and  the  intensity 
of  emotion  on  the  part  of  the  beholder  even  of  tragedy  is  sup- 
posed to  be  at  a  minimum.  Aristotle  stated  this  almost  authori- 
tatively when  he  referred  to  the  tragic  effect  as  something  cleans- 
ing, fytfharsis,  or  soothing. 

The  modern  artist  excels  in  painting  and  music,  lighter  and 
more  lyrical  types  of  beauty.  This  marks  the  passing  or  melting 
of  the  solidity  so  discernible,  so  appreciable  in  Greek  art,  and  in- 
augurates aesthetic  forms  that  are  more  easily  absorbed  by  the 
beholder  who,  as  it  were,  can  drink  them  in  and  make  them  a 
part  of  himself.  The  ideal,  no  longer  that  of  imitation,  is  ex- 
pression or  something  that  proceeds  from  within  outward  and 
then  objectifies  an  idea  or  feeling  in  the  form  of  a  canvas  or 
sonata.^  Indeed,  some  schools  of  art  as  expression,  like  that  of 
Croce,  insist  that  the  physical  objectification  of  a  beautiful  feel- 
ing is  a  thing  apart  from  beauty,  which  itself  can  be  expressed 
in  the  form  of  intuition.  A  random  instance  of  this  sentiment 
may  be  found  in  Keats'  famous  Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn,  wherein 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  SOUL  323 

it  is  suggested  that  "  heard  melodies  are  sweet,  but  those  unheard 
are  sweeter."  This  was  hardly  the  Grecian  spirit,  which  in  its 
noble  realism  would  not  have  recommended  the  composition  of 
"  ditties  of  no  tone."  It  is  eminently  modern  in  that  it  exempli- 
fies the  ideal  of  beauty  as  subjective  enjoyment  instead  of  objec- 
tive perfection.  In  all  such  expressionism  we  expect  to  find  the 
Beautiful. 

Now  these  modern  modifications  of  the  ancient  ideas,  the 
True,  the  Good,  the  Beautiful,  are  suggestive  of  the  grand  dis- 
tinction between  the  old  and  the  new  ways  of  handling  the  com- 
mon intellectualism.  We  can  best  appreciate  the  contrast  by 
plunging  into  the  problem  of  the  soul.  How  far  from  the  naive 
views  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  have  we  been  urged  by  modern  phys- 
ics and  psychology!  And  yet,  when  we  forget  our  science  and 
relapse  into  common  experience,  we  can  exercise  unusual  sym- 
pathy for  the  idea  that  the  soul  is  the  animating  spirit  of  the 
body.  Experience,  especially  when  it  is  emotional,  makes  us  feel 
that  the  ancients  then  were  with  us  as  we  are  now.  They  knew 
no  physical  laws  nor  were  they  in  possession  of  psychological 
practice;  they  lived  and  felt  and  thought.  So  do  we  also  when 
we  forget  our  analytical  sciences. 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  SOUL 

Plato  x  felt  that  the  soul  was  the  source  of  life  and  power  of 
breath.  He  realized  that  it  was  tied  or  even  "  glued  "  to  the 
body  from  which  philosophy  was  supposed  to  deliver  it  because 
of  its  superior  value.  Aristotle  was  more  technical  and  thus  pro- 
duced something  that,  in  the  case  of  his  De  Anima?  might  be 
called  a  psychology.  But  even  in  such  a  connection,  Aristode 
was  unable  to  advance  from  the  general  and  figurative  to  the 
specific  and  analytical.  The  soul  itself  is  relatively  independent 
of  the  body  in  the  sense  that  a  sailor  can  move  about  in  his  ship. 
It  is  itself  the  life  of  the  body,  a  bodily  entelechy,  or  form-giving 
principle.  Furthermore,  the  soul  Is  the  realization  of  the  body 
or  the  whole  man  in  the  sense  that  "  cutting  is  the  realization  of 
the  ax  and  vision  the  realization  of  the  eye/'  At  this  point,  it  is 

t  83;  Cratylw,  399.  2  Bk.  II,  Ch.  I. 


324          THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

interesting  to  point  out  that  Bergson,  fully  aware  of  modern 
psycho-physics  and  its  problems,  has  seen  fit  to  express  his  view 
in  a  like  manner.  "  The  consciousness  of  a  living  being  is  in- 
separable from  its  brain  in  the  sense  in  which  a  sharp  knife  is 
inseparable  from  its  edge." 3 

Ancient  philosophy  rejoiced  in  a  sense  of  unity  which  it  found 
without  any  toilsome  search  such  as  we  today  are  experiencing 
in  our  ideals  of  the  unity  of  thought  and  the  uniformity  of  na- 
ture. All  the  little  streams  of  classic  culture  flowed  serenely  into 
an  inland  sea.  The  philosophic  spirit  of  modern  times  has  been 
that  of  dualism.  It  is  not  that  we  seek  duality  any  more  than 
the  ancients  sought  unity;  we  have  this  duality  thrust  upon  us. 
It  began  when  physical  science  detached  itself  from  knowledge 
as  a  whole,  and  had  its  most  definite  origin  in  Galileo.  This 
unique  mind  was  not  that  of  the  philosopher,  still  less  of  the 
psychologist;  it  sought  practically  nothing  but  physical  measure- 
ments or  the  mathematical  forms  of  natural  laws.  The  mind  of 
Galileo  created  the  modern  ideal  that  what  is  knowable  is  meas- 
urable. Now,  in  order  to  perfect  the  ideal  of  Quantity,  it  became 
necessary  for  Galileo  to  detach  the  spatial  and  measurable  from 
experience  as  a  whole.  "Divide  and  rule  —  divide  et  im  feral " 
In  order  to  rule  the  physical  world  according  to  law,  it  became 
necessary  for  Galileo  to  divide  experience  into  the  quantitative 
and  the  non-quantitative,  into  the  physical  and  the  psychological, 
into  body  and  mind.  His  conception  of  physics  everywhere  im- 
plies this;  what  psychology  he  possessed  stated  it  definitely  in  the 
form  of  the  primary  and  the  secondary  qualities  of  sensations. 
What  Galileo  wanted  was  the  primary,  spatial  qualities  of  things 
in  order  to  measure  them.  The  secondary  ones,  like  color,  were 
cast  adrift  and  later  became  the  subject  matter  of  psychology. 

THE  MODERN  VIEW 

The  essence  of  matter  consists  in  extension;  it  is  all  a  question 
of  space,  of  size.  Such  was  the  beginning  of  modern  thought  in 
both  science  and  philosophy.  Our  galactic  system  and  the  count- 
less extra-galactic  nebulae  behind  it;  the  stars  themselves  with 

8  Creative  Evolution,  tr.  Mitchell,  p.  263. 


THE  MODERN  VIEW  325 

their  celestial  history,  intense  heat,  colossal  weight,  and  giant 
energy;  the  earth,  whose  private  system  of  evolution  has  required 
millions  upon  millions  of  years;  the  work  of  mankind  in  arrang- 
ing the  surface  of  the  earth  to  suit  its  needs  and  fancies  — all  is 
just  so  much  extension!  Now,  the  answer  that  physical  science 
gives  when  challenged  for  its  superficiality  in  spatializing  the 
universe  is  that  under  no  other  conditions  could  the  matter  in  the 
universe  be  measured.  It  was  no  wonder,  then,  that  some  two 
hundred  years  later,  Kant  came  to  regard  space  as  merely  a 
mode  of  representing  the  outer  world  whereby  we  may  expand 
space  or  contract  it  as  the  understanding  pleases  and  behold  a 
gigantic  star  as  a  speck  of  light  and  think  of  an  atom  as  a  solar 
system. 

What  was  left  after  the  universe  had  been  spatialized  to  make 
it  scientific  or  measurable?  After  the  primary  qualities  had  been 
so  splendidly  isolated,  only  the  secondary,  the  psychological  ones 
remained.  Out  of  this  scientific  refuse  the  modern  was  supposed 
to  construct  his  psychology.  Now,  if  our  language  is  to  be  strict, 
we  should  speak  of  "  primary  quantities  "  and  "  secondary  quali- 
ties," since  physics  is  a  mathematical  thing,  while  psychology  in- 
cludes the  experienced  and  enjoyed  qualities  of  sensations,  per- 
cepts, feelings,  and  the  like.  Descartes  attempted  to  adjust  the 
disjuncted  realms,  or  the  two  parts  of  the  split  soul,  by  definition. 
Body  he  styled  res  extensa,  mind  res  cogitans.  We  have  just  in- 
timated that  body,  or  matter,  may  well  be  more  than  mere  mathe- 
matical extension;  we  are  privileged  to  feel  that  mind  may 
amount  to  more  than  cogitation.  But  Descartes  was  intent  upon 
parallel  definitions  just  as,  later,  Spinoza  was  to  become  infatu- 
ated with  the  idea  of  parallelistic  relationship  between  extensio 
and  cogitatio.  Indeed,  that  is  just  what  came  of  this  original 
movement  in  modern  thought,  physics  and  metaphysics  alike,  as 
initiated  by  Galileo.  It  endeavored  to  close  the  breach  between 
body  and  mind  by  the  solidaric  theory  of  parallelism.  So  much 
mind,  so  much  body;  or,  as  Spinoza  expressed  it,  "  the  order  and 
connection  of  ideas  is  the  same  as  the  order  and  connection  of 
things." 

If  we  were  to  carry  out  the  implications  of  such  psycho-physical 
parallelism,  we  should  have  to  regard  every  mental  state  as  hav- 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

ing  something  physical  about  it.  This  would  be  satisfactory  for 
the  special  psychology  of  the  sensations,  but  would  not  work  so 
well  with  the  psychology  of  cognition  about  which  the  brain  has 
little  or  nothing  to  say.  If,  further,  we  were  to  be  consistent, 
we  should  have  to  attach  some  sort  of  feeling  or  consciousness  to 
every  bit  of  matter  and  that  would  be  inconvenient  for  physical 
science.  What  we  do  when  we  are  not  thinking  of  any  paral- 
lelistic  theory  is  to  follow  the  lead  of  experience.  Then  we  real- 
ize that,  with  beings  like  ourselves,  animals  and  not  angels,  there 
must  be  some  bodily  basis  for  consciousness.  Once  psychology 
has  paid  that  tax,  it  discovers  that  it  is  by  no  means  bankrupt;  it 
has  any  amount  of  mentality  that  it  may  invest  in  pure  thought 
and  practical  intelligence  —  science,  philosophy,  politics,  econom- 
ics, and  the  like. 

The  attempt  of  the  psychological  philosopher  to  keep  up  with 
the  mathematical  physicist  resulted  in  what  Kant  called  a  "  coarse 
dualism."  Another  and  finer  dualism  was  being  engendered  at 
the  same  time  —  the  dualism  of  sense  and  understanding  and 
the  claims  put  forth  in  their  behalf  by  Empiricism  and  Rational- 
ism. We  can  identify  these  geographically  by  setting  the  British 
Isles  off  against  the  continent  of  Europe,  We  can  contrast  them 
racially  by  mentioning  the  English,  Irish,  and  Scotch  here,  the 
French,  Dutch,  and  Germans  there.  Biographically  they  are 
known  by  the  names  of  then:  leading  exponents:  the  empirical 
Locke,  Berkeley,  Hume;  the  rationalistic  Descartes,  Spinoza, 
Leibnitz.  But  the  differences  between  the  two  schools  and  their 
competitive  claims  cannot  be  appreciated  until  their  respective 
principles  are  examined.  This  appreciation  of  particular  points 
comes  best  after  we  have  identified  their  fundamental  tones. 

EMPIRICIST  AND  RATIONALIST 

First  of  all,  one  might  imagine  that  the  Empiricists,  with  their 
inclination  toward  matter,  would  have  rejoiced  in  and  made 
abundant  use  of  the  results  of  physical  science  as  these  had  been 
worked  out  by  Copernicus  and  Kepler,  Galileo  and  Newton.  To 
be  sure,  these  men  had  proceeded  in  a  rationalistic  manner  by 
means  of  deductive  procedure,  but  the  beginning  and  end  of 


EMPIRICIST  AND  RATIONALIST  327 

their  investigations  had  to  do  with  the  physical  and  perceptible; 
with  the  experienceable.  But  in  place  of  physical  stuff,  we  find 
with  the  Empiricists  a  corresponding  amount  of  psychological 
material.  There  is  no  real  mention  of  the  sun  and  its  plan- 
ets, the  nature  of  the  earth,  or  the  general  behavior  of  matter. 
Instead  of  such  quasi-empirical  data,  we  find  any  amount 
of  discussion  concerning  sensation,  impression,  idea,  mem- 
ory, reflection,  and  the  like.  The  whole  school  of  Empiricism 
reeked  with  psychology.  It  came  to  a  climax  when  its  most 
brilliant  member,  David  Hume,  endeavored  to  destroy  the 
validity  of  the  most  important  of  all  scientific  principles  — 
causality! 

On  the  other  hand,  one  might  expect  the  Rationalist  to  have 
indulged  most  thoroughly  in  the  psychological  stuff  that  had  been 
left  over  after  the  primary,  spatial  qualities  had  been  extracted 
from  experience.  Descartes  started  out  psychologically  by  sur- 
rendering all  to  introspection,  an  action  which  made  him  aware 
of  the  self,  the  self  that  says,  "  I  think,  therefore  I  am."  But  the 
kind  of  self  that  Descartes  discovered  was  not  a  human  being  at 
all.  It  was  allowed  but  a  minimum  of  emotion  and  was  sur- 
charged with  a  maximum  of  reason.  The  Cartesian  self  was  thus 
a  scientist  much  like  Descartes  personally;  in  a  certain  sense  it 
had  no  psychology  at  all.  The  spell  of  such  scientism  affected 
Spinoza.  Personally  he  seems  to  have  been  somewhat  intuitive 
and  mystical,  but  his  expressed  system  of  philosophy,  worked 
out  after  the  manner  of  geometry,  was  far  removed  from  psy- 
chology. So,  also,  Leibnitz,  with  whom  psychological  matter 
was  only  so  much  "  confused  "  reason.  All  in  all,  the  Rationalists, 
who  might  have  been  expected  to  espouse  the  cause  of  the  mind, 
devoted  their  thoughts  to  the  body,  the  physical.  It  was  the  Em- 
piricists, supposedly  interested  in  the  body,  who  developed  the 
mind. 

Suppose  we  lay  the  Empiricist  and  the  Rationalist  down  side  by 
side  and  see  how  these  strange  bedfellows  differ  in  their  philo- 
sophic dreams.  We  have  distinguished  them  already  as  the  re- 
spective exponents  of  sense  and  understanding.  One  will  incline 
toward  the  immediate  and  perceptible;  the  other  will  prefer  cer- 
tainty in  thought  to  clearness  of  impression.  In  all  likelihood, 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

there  is  no  such  person  as  the  pure  Empiricist  or  the  pure  Ration- 
alist. Both  alike  are  dependent  upon  their  senses  and  the  various 
contacts  with  earth  that  human  life  demands.  Both  are  inclined 
to  transcend  the  limits  of  what  is  given  in  experience  and  elabo- 
rate theories  which  themselves  are  not  matters  of  experience. 
The  pure  Empiricist  would  be  a  superior  animal,  the  pure  Ra- 
tionalist an  inferior  angel 

However,  for  academic  purposes  we  may  distinguish  the  two 
schools  by  observing  that  Empiricism  moves  upward  toward  a 
proposition  by  following  the  principles  of  induction,  going  from 
the  particular  instance  to  the  general  principle.  Rationalism 
moves  downward  from  a  universal  premise  to  the  particular  ap- 
plication of  it  and  thus  realizes  the  logical  possibilities  of  deduc- 
tion. These  look  like  very  different  processes;  they  seem  to 
justify  much  of  the  warfare  between  the  inductive  Empiricist  and 
the  deductive  Rationalist.  But  when  we  look  coolly  at  the  two 
processes  they  seem  to  be  pretty  much  the  same  at  heart.  One 
talks  about  a,  b,  c,  the  other  refers  to  the  alphabet.  Here  it  is 
a  question  of  the  parts,  there  one  of  the  whole.  The  individual 
plant  or  rock  or  star  amounts  to  nothing  intellectually  until  it  is 
worked  into  botany  or  geology  or  astronomy.  These  general 
sciences  are  nothing  apart  from  the  individual  plants,  rocks,  and 
stars  that  form  their  data. 


a  priori  AND  a  posteriori 

Rationalism  and  Empiricism  agreed  to  disagree  upon  another 
question  —  that  of  the  a  priori  and  the  a  posteriori.  The  distinc- 
tion was  made  by  the  Schoolmen,  who  emphasized  the  temporal 
idea  of  before  and  after  experience.  It  was  glorified  by  Kant, 
who  made  the  a  priori  equivalent  to  the  universal  and  necessary, 
as  in  the  science  of  mathematics.  Today,  the  same  a  priori  stands 
for  the  necessary  connection  of  universal  ideas.  The  a  posteriori, 
like  the  poor,  is  ever  with  us;  we  find  it  in  things,  facts,  events, 
and  experiences  generally.  Hence,  it  is  the  a  priori  that  seems  at 
once  precious  and  problematic.  We  feel  sure  of  it  in  mathe- 
matics; how  could  arithmetic  and  geometry  depend  upon  the 
observation  of  special  cases  and  particular  forms?  We  are  not 


A  PRIORI  AND  A  POSTERIORI 

so  sure  of  it  in  physics  and  chemistry.  Why  should  a  body  fall 
just  sixteen  feet  the  first  second  or  oxygen  have  the  atomic  weight 
of  sixteen?  But  once  we  have  made  allowance  for  empirical 
facts  and  turned  those  sciences  over  to  mathematics,  the  a  priori 
appears  again.  In  ethics,  we  seem  to  have  a  self-evident  principle 
in  the  idea  of  the  Good  and  happiness;  we  know  without  appeal 
to  experience  that  these  are  preferable  to  the  Bad  and  misery.  In 
political  thinking  we  assume  that  justice  is  right  or,  at  any  rate, 
we  know  of  no  way  to  prove  the  principle  of  justice  except  by 
itself.  The  actual  life  of  an  unjust  man  or  an  unjust  State  may 
be  more  successful  than  that  of  just  men  and  just  States,  and  yet 
we  cannot  yield  to  the  idea  that  justice  is  not  right.  It  is  a  priori 
in  its  own  way.  Naturally  we  need  experience  to  incite  the  idea 
of  universal  and  necessary  truth.  Just  as  naturally  do  we  turn  to 
experience  to  exemplify  the  a  priori,  but  between  these  empirical 
termini  the  a  priori  stands  by  itself. 

But  experience  does  more  than  set  up  the  boundaries  of  pure 
reasoning  in  a  finite  mind.  It  filters  through  the  abstract  premises 
and  gives  thought  due  volume.  The  astronomer  calculates  with 
his  mind,  then  observes  with  his  eyes.  He  spreads  out  before 
us  both  his  formulae  of  the  skies  and  photographs  of  the  stars. 
He  moves  back  and  forth  between  the  a  priori  and  the  a  poste- 
riori. The  discovery  of  the  planet  Neptune  illustrates  this  most 
clearly.  When,  in  1781,  the  elder  Herschel  discovered  the  planet 
Uranus,  he  observed  that  its  orbit  was  not  such  as  one  would 
expect  in  the  gravitational  field  of  the  sun  and  the  other  known 
planets.  In  1846  the  orbit  of  Uranus  was  calculated  more  closely 
by  J.  C.  Adams,  who  concluded  that  there  must  be  some  other 
planet  outside  the  orbit  of  Uranus  drawing  it  from  its  celestial 
course.  The  planet  Neptune  was  seen  immediately  afterwards, 
but  not  definitely  identified.  In  1864,  U.  J.  Leverrier  made  a 
similar  computation,  whereupon  the  planet  was  immediately 
identified.  Now,  the  line  of  reasoning  in  this  spectacular  case 
leads  from  the  a  posteriori  in  the  known  planets  to  the  a  priori  in 
the  case  of  the  one  whose  position  in  the  skies  is  calculated,  and 
then  back  to  the  a  posteriori  when  the  planet  is  actually  observed. 
The  same  fusion  has  been  at  work  recently  in  the  discovery  of  the 
planet  Pluto  —  the  theoretical  computations  of  the  astronomer 


330          THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Lowell  and  the  actual  appearance  of  the  planet  upon  the  tele- 
photographic  plate. 

The  combination  of  a  priori  and  a  posteriori  appeared  on  a 
smaller  scale,  but  with  no  less  eclat  in  connection  with  the  dis- 
covery of  the  Periodic  Law.  Mendelieff  charted  the  then-known 
chemical  elements,  arranged  horizontally  according  to  their 
atomic  weights,  vertically  according  to  their  physical  and  chemical 
properties.  Each  element  was  given  an  atomic  number  from  its 
place  in  the  table,  ranging  from  i  to  92,  and  it  was  then  dis- 
covered that  there  were  certain  gaps  in  the  chart.  Pure  theory 
had  places  for  practical  things  which  had  no  existence,  as  far  as 
the  knowledge  of  them  was  concerned.  But  from  the  position 
of  the  unknown  elements  in  the  chart,  their  atomic  weights  and 
properties  could  be  determined  approximately.  They  needed 
only  to  be  discovered  to  make  the  chart  complete.  The  actual 
discovery  of  the  missing  elements,  the  last  of  which  has  recently 
come  to  light,  completed  the  theoretical  table,  and  a  priori  wis- 
dom was  justified  of  her  a  posteriori  children.  Again,  it  was  a 
course  of  reasoning  from  the  empirical  to  the  empirical,  but  not 
in  a  straight  line;  the  course  of  cognition  looped  up  into  the  thin 
air  of  theory. 

If  iBen  were  only  as  rational  as  atoms  and  States  as  wise  as 
stars,  there  might  be  some  hope  of  applying  the  a  priori  to  human 
life  in  both  individual  and  society.  Perhaps  something  of  the 
sort  can  be  done.  We  know,  as  has  been  noted,  that  the  mind 
decides  without  argument  in  favor  of  goodness  and  happiness  as 
against  badness  and  misery.  We  approve  of  truth  instead  of 
error  even  when  we  have  had  little  experience  with  the  former. 
We  decide  in  favor  of  life  in  contrast  with  death  when  we  person- 
ally have  not  tried  death.  We  are  pledged  to  the  a  priori  and 
no  amount  of  empirical  small  change  seems  worth  the  smaller 
weight  of  thought  in  gold.  However,  this  small-change  philoso- 
phy was  destined  to  appear  in  time;  it  was  discovered  in  America. 

PRAGMATISM 

The  course  of  modern  philosophy,  which  had  been  flowing  on 
for  nearly  three  centuries  between  the  Scylla  of  Rationalism  and 


PRAGMATISM 

Charybdis  of  Empiricism,  has  been  disturbed  by  the  appearance  of 
Pragmatism.  In  a  certain  acceptable  sense,  Pragmatism  is  an 
American  philosophy  of  the  XXth  century,  and  rejoices  in  a  kind 
of  here-and-now  effect.  It  dates  back  well  into  the  XlXth  cen- 
tury and,  in  a  certain  loose  sense,  is  as  old  as  man  himself;  but 
it  is  supposed  to  be  a  new  theory  of  knowledge  fit  to  be  placed 
beside  Rationalism  and  Empiricism.  In  its  general  character, 
Pragmatism  pretends  to  be  an  innovation;  in  its  more  radical 
form,  it  assumes  to  change  the  old  standards  of  verity.  The 
Pragmatist  is  something  like  Moliere's  Doctor  in  Spite  of  Himself. 
The  philosophical  patient  protests  that  he  has  always  heard  that 
the  heart  was  on  the  left  side,  the  liver  on  the  right;  the  pragmatic 
physicican  asserts  with  confidence,  "  We  have  changed  all  that 
—  nous  avons  change  tout  cela"  Now,  if  we  can  rid  our  minds 
of  the  idea  that  Pragmatism  is  a  great  intellectual  innovation,  we 
shall  be  able  to  appreciate  the  presence  of  the  pragmatic  in  the 
traditional  ways  of  thinking  as  well  as  in  the  general  habits  of 
the  mind.  We  are  all  Pragmatists  in  spite  of  ourselves,  Pragma- 
tists  in  both  politics  and  philosophy.  But  we  keep  our  Rational- 
ism to  the  left,  our  Empiricism  to  the  right.  We  have  not 
changed  all  that  at  all. 

Pragmatism  would  have  us  extend  the  ideal  of  the  True  until 
it  embraces  something  of  the  Good;  it  would  have  us  attribute 
more  content  to  the  old  form.  Then,  in  place  of  theoretical  con- 
clusions we  shall  have  practical  consequences.  The  spirit  of 
Pragmatism  is  expressible  in  terms  of  a  comment  long  attributed 
to  the  emperor  Vespasian:  "The  most  monstrous  hypothesis! 
which  produces  results  is  better  than  the  neatest,  trimmest  theory^ 
from  which  nothing  follows."  Copernican  astronomy  was  origi- 
nally a  "monstrous  hypothesis,"  but  it  produced  results  in  the 
study  of  the  solar  system.  Darwinian  evolution  was  another  such 
"  monstrosity "  of  the  mind,  but  it  led  to  fruitful  consequences 
in  anthropology.  Kant's  conception  of  space  as  a  way  of  repre- 
senting the  universe  rather  than  as  a  property  of  matter  appeared 
absurd  to  common  sense,  but  it  explained  how  science  had  been 
able  to  reduce  the  universe  to  geometrical  form.  Einstein's  doc- 
trine of  Relativity  is  the  scientific  monstrosity  of  the  day  and  by 
no  means  as  "  neat  and  trim  "  as  Newtonian  mechanics,  but  its 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

fruitful  results  are  constantly  appearing.  Planck's  theory  of  the 
radiation  of  energy  by  fits  and  starts,  as  it  seems  to  the  lay  mind, 
instead  of  in  a  smooth  and  continuous  manner,  still  seems  rather 
ridiculous  to  those  who  were  brought  up  on  classic  physics,  but 
it  seems  to  be  telling  us  the  secret  of  the  atom. 

We  welcome  all  such  monstrous  hypotheses  because  they  tend 
to  explain  things  to  us,  yet  we  exercise  the  faint  hope  that  in 
time,  after  they  have  been  integrated  into  or  absorbed  by  our 
intellects  they  will  assume  the  neat  and  trim  form  of  classic 
theory.  It  is  too  early  to  judge  the  fruits  of  the  tree;  after  they 
have  ripened,  we  can  decide  whether  our  truths  are  really  rational 
or  only  pragmatic.  Pragmatism  is  a  theory  of  knowledge  which 
attempts  to  arrive  at  truth  or  find  the  quality  of  verity  in  things 
by  the  way  ideas  work.  Does  Pragmatism  itself  work?  Can  it 
take  its  place  in  the  world  as  one  of  the  forces  of  civilization  and 
culture? 

PHILOSOPHY  AND  POLITICS 

Philosophy  is  a  part  or  phase  of  human  life  but  is  more  a 
matter  of  private  interest  than  public  concern.  If  Plato  had  had 
Hs  way  and  the  rest  of  Europe  had  imitated  a  Platonized  Athens, 
kings  and  emperors  in  the  Old  World  and  even  presidents  in  the 
New  would  have  been  philosopher-rulers.  But  the  philosopher  is 
more  likely  to  consider  the  State  than  its  ruler  is  to  consult  the 
philosopher.  What  is  there  in  philosophic  method  that  the 
State  can  apply?  What  philosophic  school  —  Empiricism  or 
Rationalism,  Idealism  or  Realism  —  could  be  taken  over  and  in- 
stalled by  any  government  ?  Of  course,  such  questions  are  absurd, 
and  yet  did  not  Plato  wish  to  base  a  republic  upon  ideas  ?  But  the 
philosopher  has  done  other  things;  an  Aristotle  worked  out  a 
theory  of  politics,  a  Grotius  a  philosophy  of  rights.  The  philo- 
sophico-political  value  of  these  men  consists  in  this  —  that  they 
combined  theoretical  principles  with  practical  conditions.  Aris- 
totle condemned  Plato's  rational  Republic  because  it  failed  to 
reckon  with  such  existing  things  as  private  life,  private  property, 
and  the  separate  household.  Grotius,  on  the  other  hand,  criticized 
the  Republique  of  Bodin  because  it  did  not  distinguish  the  science 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  POLITICS  333 

of  law  from  mere  statecraft,  and  ignored  Natural  Law  for  the 
sake  of  the  arbitrary  conventions  of  particular  nations.  Aristotle 
proceeded  from  the  premise  that  "  man  is  by  nature  a  political 
animal,"  and  then  sought  to  determine  in  what  form  of  State 
man  could  be  most  fully  human;  that  is,  most  virtuous  and  happy. 
Grotius  used  even  more  definite  philosophical  procedure  when 
he  attempted  to  prove  the  existence  of  jus  naturde  by  both  a 
priori  and  a  posteriori  reasoning. 

But  political  procedure  does  not  always  pursue  the  strict 
methods  of  logic  that  Grotius  applied  to  international  law.  For 
the  body  politic  is  not  supposed  to  follow  the  Law  of  Nature  the 
way  particles  of  matter  obey  the  laws  of  physics.  Nature  and 
society  are  different.  In  time  to  come,  men  may  obey  the  law 
of  justice  the  way  material  bodies  obey  the  law  of  gravitation,  but 
that  Utopia  is  far  below  our  present  horizon.  In  the  State,  where 
men  must  be  controlled  and  commodities  administered,  the 
practical  legislator  cannot  wait  until  a  complete  philosophy  of 
rights  has  determined  the  right  relation  of  man  to  man,  and 
society  to  the  things  of  this  world.  A  radical  American  may  have 
lost  his  faith  in  the  divine  character  of  democracy,  but  he  can  pro- 
ceed better  by  recalling  that  ideal  than  by  endeavoring  to  recast 
the  State  according  to  a  theory.  An  enlightened  Englishman  may 
no  longer  subscribe  to  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  right  of  kings, 
but  with  such  a  vast  State  as  that  of  Great  Britain  the  ideal  of 
monarchy  is  a  sufficient  guide.  As  we  have  observed  in  the 
case  of  Aristotle  and  Grotius,  the  theory  of  the  State  should  be 
both  rational  and  empirical;  rational  in  its  regard  for  the  ethical 
principles  of  politics,  empirical  in  its  concern  for  existing  con- 
stitutions and  current  conditions.  Perhaps  the  present  plight  of 
democracy  is  due  to  the  failure  to  balance  these  momenta,  or  due 
to  the  preponderance  of  the  empirical  factor  in  statecraft. 

The  application  of  the  pragmatic  method  to  the  State  is  obvious, 
but  none  the  less  obnoxious.  Legislation  shows  this.  The  lay- 
man is  in  the  habit  of  thinking  that  laws  are  framed  the  way 
conclusions  are  drawn.  He  assumes  that  a  law  is  the  conclusion 
drawn  from  the  major  premise  of  justice.  Instead  of  such 
philosophical  politics  we  find  pragmatic  statecraft,  which  results 
in  the  passage  of  laws  by  the  thousands  until  they  aggregate 


334          THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

almost  unto  millions.  The  layman  would  like  to  regard  particu- 
lar laws  as  so  many  parts  of  the  State  and  legislation  as  the  natural 
consequences  o£  justice.  Unable  to  exercise  such  a  vision  of 
State  and  law,  he  falls  back  upon  political  Pragmatism  and  as- 
sumes that  there  is  a  difference  between  what  is  lawful  and  what 
is  expedient. 

Pragmatism  conducts  or  beguiles  us  from  the  Intellectualism  of 
the  Athenian  to  the  Humanism  of  the  American,  changes  the 
tone  of  philosophy  from  aristocracy  to  democracy,  and  tends  to 
substitute  the  needs  of  the  heart  for  the  ideals  of  the  intellect. 
In  a  certain  historical  sense,  the  Pragmatist  of  today  is  akin  to  the 
Sophist  in  the  days  of  Socrates.  Or  all  of  us  incline  toward  the 
spirit  of  Protagoras  since  we  tend  to  make  the  individual  "  man 
the  measure  of  all  things,"  believe  in  money,  and  are  proud  of 
our  sophistication.  It  is  hard  for  us  to  learn  the  Socratic  lesson 
of  true  self-knowledge  and  moral  restraint.  The  Pragmatist  has 
taken  advantage  of  the  present  confusion  in  physics  and  politics, 
morals  and  religion  and  urged  his  theory  upon  us.  Or,  to  take 
a  more  favorable  view  of  his  scheme,  he  has  supplied  us  with  a 
form  of  thinking  adapted  to  suit  the  contradictory  conditions  of 
contemporary  thought.  But  is  Humanism  sufficient;  will  it 
stand  the  pragmatic  test  and  work  out  fruitful  consequences? 
Two  pairs  of  philosophic  problems,  modern  and  also  time- 
honored  ones,  should  serve  to  reveal  the  shortcomings  of  the 
pragmatic  method. 

TESTS  OF  PRAGMATISM 

Suppose  we  consider  modern  astronomy  and  modern  biology 
and  their  philosophic  effects  upon  our  idea  of  the  earth  and 
man.  These  sciences  tend  to  degrade  the  earth  and  belittle  the 
importance  of  man.  Long  ago,  man  gave  up  the  idea  that  the 
earth  was  the  static  center  of  the  universe;  more  recently  has  he 
yielded  the  idea  that  the  sun  lies  near  the  center  of  our  galactic 
system,  our  own  universe.  Then,  likewise,  our  universe  is  only 
one  among  others.  When  the  controversy  began  three  hundred 
years  ago,  everything  was  on  the  side  of  Humanism,  man's 
interests,  beliefs,  and  ideals;  little  or  nothing  ranged  up  alongside 


TESTS  OF  PRAGMATISM  335 

theoretical  science.  If  humanistic  Pragmatism  had  been  the 
ruling  philosophy,  as  it  was  indeed  the  leading  tendency,  modern 
science  could  hardly  have  come  into  being.  Modern  science 
struck  man  a  terrible  blow,  but  it  was  aimed  at  his  heart,  not  his 
head.  Man's  recovery,  which  is  still  going  on,  has  been  due  to 
the  fact  that  his  leading  interest  is  a  rationalistic  rather  than  a 
humanistic  one.  If  man  had  kept  asking,  "  Does  this  idea  make 
any  difference  to  me?  "  we  should  not  have  had  our  present 
astronomy.  The  new  astronomic  idea  did  make  a  difference  to 
him  in  his  anthropomorphic  faith  and  narrow  belief  in  himself, 
but  he  resolved,  in  the  case  of  the  wiser  mind,  that  the  new  idea 
should  not  make  any  difference  after  all. 

"  Is  not  just  the  self-diminution  of  man,  is  not  his  will  to  self- 
diminution  ever  since  Copernicus  making  irresistible  progress?  ** 
said  Nietzsche.  "  Alas,  the  belief  in  his  dignity,  his  uniqueness, 
his  irreplaceability  in  the  rank-sequence  of  beings  is  gone;  he 
has  become  an  animal,  an  animal  without  likeness,  allowance  and 
reserve  —  he,  who  in  his  former  belief  was  almost  a  God  ("  Child 
of  God,  God-man").  ...  It  seems  as  though  man,  since  Coper- 
nicus, had  slid  upon  an  inclined  plane,  —  he  ever  rolls  more 
rapidly  away  from  the  center.  Whither?  "4 

One  may  feel  surprise  that  Nietzsche,  an  avowed  irreligionist, 
should  feel  such  an  antipathy  to  Copernicus,  whose  views  were 
quite  commonplace  in  1887,  when  Nietzsche  wrote  his  Genealogy 
of  Morals.  His  hectic  words  are  quoted  simply  to  convey  the 
abiding  sense  of  human  regret  that  man's  habitat  had  been 
relegated  to  an  inconspicuous  position  in  the  universe  at  large 
and  he  himself  made  to  appear  contemptible.  Now,  it  was  be- 
cause man  followed  the  older  methodologies  of  Rationalism 
and  Empiricism  and,  incidentally,  fought  his  inherent  Pragma- 
tism, that  astronomy  adjusted  the  earth  to  something  like  its 
proper  position  in  the  skies.  Hence  it  seems  out  o£  place  when 
a  sober  scientist  like  Jeans,  who  is  no  mad  rhetorician  like 
Nietzsche,  speaks  of  January  7,  1610  as  a  "fateful  day  for  the 
human  race,"  and  refers  to  this  date  further  as  something  that 
"  proved  to  be  the  most  catastrophic  in  the  history  of  the  race."  5 

4  Genealogy  of  Morals,  tr.  Hausemann,  III,  p.  216. 

5  The  Universe  Around  Us,  pp.  I,  6. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

Dies  hoc!    On  that  day  Galileo  looked  at  the  stars  through 
an  amateur  telescope!    Was  this  a  catastrophe  for  the  rational 

mind?  ce. 

Nietzsche  refers  to  the  "dignity,"  "uniqueness,"  and  ^  irre- 
placeability  "  in  the  order  of  existence  as  though  these  attributes 
of  man  had  been  taken  from  him.  This  bitter  sentiment  carries 
us  over  into  the  second  great  scientific  movement  of  modern  times 
—  Darwinism.  Again  we  must  insist  that,  if  one  would  main- 
tain a  humanistic,  anthropomorphic  point  of  view,  Darwinism 
will  prove  disastrous  to  his  pride  and  pretensions.  The  new 
astronomy  changed  the  position  of  man's  habitat,  but  did  not 
disturb  his  own  nature.  This  was  done  violently  by  the  general 
Theory  of  Evolution,  which  connected  the  life,  consciousness,  and 
even  character  of  man  with  the  existence  of  other  species.  All 
that  is  human  and  temperamental  within  man  tends  to  cry  out 
for  a  return  to  the  strictly  human  estimate  of  the  human  race;  its 
godlike  descent  and  spiritual  destiny.  But  what  is  rational  within 
man  assents  to  a  perplexing  theory  as  that  which  is  most  in  accord 
with  the  facts  in  the  case  and  the  rational  interpretation  of  them. 
When,  therefore,  we  are  called  upon  to  choose  between  the  desir- 
able and  the  thinkable,  the  humanistic  and  the  rationalistic,  we 
decide  in  favor  of  the  latter. 

In  the  case  of  more  desirable  ideas,  such  as  God  and  the  soul, 
we  have  to  consider  that  the  human  appeal  made  by  these 
ideas  is  not  the  ground  of  belief  in  them.  Here  we  must  observe 
that  certain  types  of  mind  are  not  so  favorably  impressed  by  these 
spiritual  ideals.  Or  under  conditions  of  political  disorder,  such 
as  we  observed  in  Russia,  the  national  mind  generally  is  not  in 
favor  of  God  and  the  soul.  Where  there  is  a  settled  political 
order,  there  is  usually  theological  peace  of  mind,  and  vice  versa. 
When  the  order  is  changing,  Church  as  well  as  State  is  affected, 
so  that  the  radical  in  politics  becomes  the  radical  in  theology. 
The  result  is  that  the  radical  mind,  almost  always  that  of  the 
doctrinaire,  in  setting  up  an  anarchism  thinks  it  necessary  to  set 
up  an  atheism.  The  result  is  that  the  anarchist  or  communist 
speaks  of  himself  for  short  as  an  "atheist."  The  fact  of  the 
matter  is  that  his  preoccupation  with  political  questions  has  not 
given  him  opportunity  for  the  study  of  theological  ones.  Never- 


TESTS  OF  PRAGMATISM  337 

theless,  he  insists  upon  being  an  "  atheist."     Hence  follow  his 
negative  views  of  God  and  the  soul. 

Now,  Intellectualism  In  both  its  rationalistic  and  empirical 
forms  is  bound  to  insist  that  one's  personal  and  political  views, 
religion  and  irreligion,  have  practically  nothing  to  do  with  the 
credibility  of  one's  ideas.  We  may  dislike  Copernicus  and  Dar- 
win, but  our  feelings  have  nothing  to  do  with  astronomy  and 
biology.  The  ideas  of  God  and  soul  may  or  may  not  appeal  to 
us  as  worth  while,  but  the  truth  or  plausibility  of  these  ideas  de- 
pends upon  a  metaphysical  conception  of  them.  When  Pragma- 
tism abandons  its  purely  humanistic  attitude,  as  it  seems  to  be 
doing  now,  and  takes  a  relativistic  point  of  view,  we  are  more 
inclined  to  accept  it.  Since  the  field  of  knowledge  is  so  vast,  we 
can  hardly  expect  to  experience  it;  and  since  the  conceptions  of 
things  in  that  field  are  undergoing  such  changes,  we  can  hardly 
hope  to  rationalize  our  experience.  We  are  pragmatic  pro  tern- 
fore,  but  we  hope  to  become  more  rationalistic  as  time  goes  on. 
All  philosophy  springs  from  the  human  understanding.  Where 
this  is  "  all-too-human,"  we  have  Pragmatism;  when  the  under- 
standing itself  is  emphasized,  the  result  is  Intellectualism,  the 
field  of  philosophy  far  excellence. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  POLITICAL  FACTOR  IN  MODERN 
CIVILIZATION 


THE  CONSENT  OF  THE  GOVERNED 

MODERN  POLITICS  IN  CITY  AND  STATE,  IN  NATIONAL  AND  INTER- 
national  forms  is  now  such  a  complicated  affair  that  we 
tend  to  lose  sight  of  its  fundamental  principles.  The 
political,  like  the  scientific  and  philosophical,  the  industrial  and 
economic,  is  a  way  of  living,  a  way  of  living  well.  The  political 
principle  is  the  same  now  as  it  was  at  the  beginning  of  civiliza- 
tion; its  form  has  changed,  but  its  essence  has  remained  the 
same.  A  modern  machine  made  up  of  innumerable  parts  is 
enormously  different  from  a  stone  tool  manufactured  thousands 
of  years  ago,  but  both  serve  the  same  purpose  —  the  lengthening 
of  man's  hand,  the  extension  of  his  powers.  The  political  State 
is  a  similar  extension  of  man's  being  and  influence,  so  that,  in 
the  case  of  some  eminent  political  philosophers,  notably  Plato 
and  Hobbes,  the  State  is  thought  of  as  only  an  enlarged  man. 
Both  the  body  politic  and  the  private  person  are  supposed  to 
desire  the  same  thing;  both  aim  at  what  is  harmonious  with 
their  respective  and  similar  natures.  This  may  be  expressed 
in  a  pleasing  and  plausible  manner  by  stating  that  government 
rests  on  the  consent  of  the  governed.  It  is  the  earliest  and  the 
latest  conception  of  politics. 

In  Hebrew  religion,  Greek  philosophy,  and  Roman  law,  the 
consent  of  the  governed  was  a  fundamental  principle  of  politics. 
The  religio-political  conception  of  life  according  to  the  Hebrews 
is  expressed  pointedly  in  such  a  statement  as  the  following: 
"  And  Jehoiada  made  a  covenant  between  the  Lord  and  the  king 
and  the  people,  that  they  should  be  the  Lord's  people;  between 
the  king  also  and  the  people."1  This,  however,  was  only  an 
unusually  definite  expression  of  the  covenant-idea  of  the  Old 
Testament,  according  to  which  Jahweh  is  represented  as  saying, 

i  //  Kings  XI,  17. 


THE  CONSENT  OF  THE  GOVERNED 

"  I  will  be  your  God  and  ye  shall  be  my  people."  In  a  certain 
sense,  this  religious  conception  embodied  the  modern  idea  of 
civil  government  by  contract.  The  Deity  was  to  contribute 
divine  care  in  consideration  for  human  worship,  or  the  Promised 
Land  for  the  pure  worship  of  the  national  God. 

Among  the  Greeks,  Plato  with  his  aristocratic  system  of  politics 
would  hardly  be  expected  to  stoop  to  the  idea  of  government 
by  consent  and  yet  his  later  political  philosophy  does  not  omit 
this  precious  principle.  Plato  gave  some  expression  to  it  in 
connection  with  the  proper  principles  of  rule  and  obedience  in 
governments,  and  states  that  according  to  nature  there  should 
be  a  "  rule  of  law  over  willing  subjects  and  not  a  rule  of  com- 
pulsion." 2  He  indicates  further  that  a  just  government  is  one 
of  "  voluntary  rule  over  voluntary  subjects."  The  Roman  con- 
ception of  government  by  consent  was  suggested  by  the  anti- 
monarchical  work  The  Grounds  of  Rights  against  Tyrants 
(1579),  in  which,  as  this  work  is  elucidated  by  Dunning,3  it  is 
asserted  that  the  relation  of  king  to  people  is  one  of  contract. 
The  people  or  their  representatives  ask  the  king  whether  he  will 
rule  justly  and,  upon  receiving  a  satisfactory  answer,  agree  to 
give  faithful  obedience.  This,  as  the  work  suggests,  is  the 
true  foundation  of  all  royal  government;  tyranny  consists  in 
the  violation  of  the  contract  which  the  monarch  has  made  with 
his  people. 

Did  the  Romans  base  their  idea  of  the  State  upon  this  notion 
of  compact  or  was  this  merely  the  idea  of  the  anti-monarchical 
work  just  referred  to?  Dunning,  whom  we  were  following  in 
this  connection,  does  no  more  than  state  that  such  was  the 
opinion  expressed  in  The  Grounds  of  Rights  against  Tyrants,  not 
that  the  consent  of  the  governed  was  a  practice  in  Roman 
history.  Mommsen  was  somewhat  more  explicit,  so  that  from 
his  History  of  Rome  we  are  able  to  extract  the  following 
sentence  by  way  of  illumination:  "The  community  did  not 
owe  fidelity  and  obedience  to  the  king  until  he  had  convoked 
the  assembly  of  freemen  capable  of  bearing  arms  and  had 
formally  challenged  its  allegiance."4  Yet  the  consent  of  the 

2  Laws,  Bk.  Ill,  690.  4  Op.  cit.t  Vol.  I,  p.  97. 

3  History  of  Political  Theories,  Vol.  n,  p.  53» 


340  THE  POLITICAL  FACTOR 

governed  is  something  we  are  more  likely  to  accept  as  the 
ruling  sentiment  of  a  people  rather  than  the  actual  practice  of 
a  State.  The  body  politic  for  all  its  vastness  and  variety  seems 
to  contain  the  ingredients  of  human  nature.  It  is  a  grouping 
of  individuals  and  the  assembling  of  things,  is  comprised  of 
persons  and  property,  and  attempts  to  govern  one  and  ad- 
minister the  other.  "A  State,"  said  Aristotle,  "is  one  of  the 
works  of  nature,  and  man  is  by  nature  a  political  animal."  5 
We  may  not  care  to  express  our  conception  of  man  in  just 
this  way,  since  the  political  seems  like  an  extra  touch  applied 
to  the  life  of  mankind,  yet  we  may  rest  assured  that  man 
is  by  nature  a  social  being  out  of  whose  social  nature  the 
political  can  be  formed.  Men  tend  to  group  and  gather  things 
around  them,  and  these  activities  relate  them  to  one  another  as 
also  to  the  things  of  this  world.  The  political  and  physical  re- 
lations thus  engendered  provoke  the  development  of  an  or- 
ganized State. 

PLATO'S  REPUBLIC 

The  State  in  the  form  of  these  natural,  growing  relations  had 
existed  for  ages  before  it  became  the  subject -of  analytical  study. 
There  was,  of  course,  before  the  science  of  the  State  arose,  a 
practical  study  of  its  needs  as  also  of  the  best  ways  of  governing 
and  administering,  to  say  nothing  of  rather  extensive  legislation. 
But  there  was  no  political  science  until  the  coming  of  Greek 
philosophy  and  no  political  theory  until  Plato  elaborated  one. 
The  remarkable  thing  about  Plato's  Republic  is  that  it  is  at  onee 
the  earliest  and  the  latest  theory  of  the  State,  for  what  he  said 
twenty-three  hundred  years  ago  about  an  ideal  Athens  is  now 
being  considered  in  the  form  of  an  ideal  or  rational  Italy,  an 
ideal  or  scientific  Russia.  Plato  was  not  concerned  with  the 
scientific  question  of  how  the  State  came  into  existence  or  what 
are  the  necessary  conditions  of  a  real  State.  His  concern  is  with 
the  question  why  there  should  be  a  State  and  how  it  may  best 
be  thought  o£  Plato  deals  with  theory  rather  than  history,  with 
values  rather  than  facts.  His  first  step  in  the  direction  of  an  ideal 
5  Politics,  Kk.  I,  CLII. 


THE  REALIZATION  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

order  is  a  step  away  from  the  real  one;  that  Is,  he  begins  by 
repudiating  the  natural  origin  of  the  State  in  the  family,  the 
origin  of  the  polls  in  the  oifos.  His  ideal  State  is  based  upon 
the  principle  of  community  of  wives  and  property.  Having 
severed  the  State  from  its  natural  origin,  Plato  was  free  to  de- 
velop it  according  to  an  ideal  end.  The  communistic  arrange- 
ment of  the  Republic  and  the  caste-like  division  of  the  State  into 
orders  of  men,  which  Plato  discarded  in  the  Laws,  reveal  the 
extreme  rationalism  of  his  political  system. 

In  the  development  of  the  Republic,  which  was  really  a  work 
on  justice,  Plato  ignored  history  for  the  sake  of  reason  and  in- 
dulged in  theoretical  premises  at  the  expense  of  practical  con- 
clusions. His  method  of  political  procedure  was  that  of  philo- 
sophical division,  which  seemed  to  promise  a  rational  republic 
and  a  wise  plan  of  justice.  The  dialectical  division  is  the  three- 
fold one  penetrating  his  system.  The  cosmos  is  made  up  of 
body-soul-mind,  man  of  appetite-desire-reason;  the  virtues  that 
follow  are  temperance-courage-wisdom,  while  the  classes  of  men 
who  possess  these  faculties  and  are  expected  to  exemplify  these 
virtues  are  the  workers-warriors-rulers.  The  virtue  of  justice, 
which  finds  no  place  in  the  cosmos  and  belongs  to  no  class  in 
the  State,  is  supposed  to  dictate  the  divisions  and  preside  over 
the  whole  system.  The  historical  example  which  Plato  seems 
to  have  in  mind  was  the  government  of  Sparta,  the  desired  ap- 
plication of  the  plan  concerned  Athens,  while  the  actual  counter- 
part of  the  three  classes  was  suggested  to  him  by  the  Phoenicians 
and  Egyptians  at  the  bottom,  the  Thracians  and  Scythians  in  the 
middle,  and  the  Greeks  generally  and  the  Athenians  in  particular 
at  the  top.6 

THE  REALIZATION  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 

Both  idealism  and  historical  realism  seem  to  have  been  at 
work  in  Plato's  mind  when  he  devised  his  startling  political 
plan.  On  the  side  of  philosophy,  Plato's  belief  in  the  reality 
of  the  universal  idea  and  the  shadow-like  existence  of  particular 
things  inclined  him  to  view  the  State  as  of  supreme  importance, 

«  Republic,  Bk.  IV,  435. 


THE  POLITICAL  FACTOR 

the  individual  as  of  only  relative  worth.  On  the  side  o£  history, 
he  realized  that  the  ideal  of  citizenship  exemplified  in  the  con- 
stitution of  Sparta  was  an  approximation  to  his  theoretical  con- 
ception of  the  State;  for  Sparta  had  a  degree  of  communism,  a 
system  of  classes,  lax  marriage,  and  no  private  property.  ^  Athens 
was  intensely  individualistic  and  stood  in  need  of  political  re- 
form, which  Plato  would  carry  out,  it  seems,  by  a  radical  remold- 
ing of  the  whole  political  system.  This  was  to  be  the  Ideal 
Republic.  On  the  positive  and  favorable  side,  the  philosophical 
premises  led  to  the  idea  of  the  perfect  State,  in  which  each  in- 
dividual was  a  citizen.  On  the  negative  and  unfavorable  side, 
the  same  premises  brought  the  political  philosopher  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  individual  parts,  or  human  beings  with  their 
personal  lives,  personal  property,  and  domestic  relations  were 
matters  of  no  concern.  The  State  was  for  all  and  yet  for  none. 
What  were  the  ways  and  means  of  this  hypothetical  order 
of  politics?  How  was  Plato  or  the  political  Platonist  to  put  it 
into  effect?  More  than  one  answer  was  given  to  that  important 
question  of  practical  detail,  of  modus  oferandi.  These  answers 
to  the  question  "  how?  "  may  be  summed  up  in  the  form  of  the 
philosophical,  political,  and  social.  The  philosophical  principle 
on  which  the  new  Republic  was  to  be  based  found  expression 
in  the  well-known  saying  in  the  fourth  book  of  the  Republic, 
"Until  philosophers  are  kings  and  princes  of  this  world  have 
the  spirit  and  power  of  philosophy,  then  only  will  this  our  State 
have  a  possibility  of  life."  The  political  expedient  consisted  in 
having  a  despotic  philosopher  introduce  the  ideal  State  by  force 
and  then  realize  its  possibilities  by  educating  the  children  up 
to  the  new  ideals.7  The  social  method  was  that  of  general  re- 
form, expressed  in  the  Laws,  which  abandons  communism  and 
endeavors  to  fill  up  the  gap  between  the  ideal  and  the  real.  To 
these  three  devices  might  be  added  the  idealistic  view  of  the  Re- 
public, in  accordance  with  which  the  philosopher  considers  "  the 
city  which  is  within  him,"  acts  according  to  its  ideals,  and  is 
fairly  oblivious  of  the  feeling  that  it  will  never  find  its  real 
counterpart  in  the  world.8 

7  Erdmann,  History  of  Philosophy,  tr.  Hough,  §  79,  6. 

8  Republic,  Bk.  IX,  591-592. 


MAN  A  POLITICAL  ANIMAL  343 

MAN  A  POLITICAL  ANIMAL 

Now,  it  is  this  real  counterpart  to  the  ideal  polity  that  Aristotle 
sought  in  his  work  called  Politics.  Unlike  Plato,  he  did  not  at- 
tempt to  take  the  real  State  apart  and  put  it  together  again 
according  to  an  ideal  pattern;  rather  did  he  accept  the  given  con- 
tent of  government  and  seek  to  interpret  it  according  to  principles 
of  reason.  The  difference  between  Plato's  Ideal  Republic  and 
Aristotle's  Household-State  indicates  the  difference  between 
Plato's  Academy  and  Aristotle's  Peripatetic  School.  In  one  we 
find  a  system  of  ideas  based  upon  the  Good;  in  the  other  a  scheme 
of  entelechies,  or  living  causes,  working  toward  Happiness. 
Moreover,  the  philosophy  of  Aristode  is  marked  by  the  presence 
of  the  Golden  Mean,  which  insured  him  intellectually  from  the 
extremes  and  contradictions  of  the  real  and  the  ideal  as  these 
keep  competing  in  Plato's  system.  In  other  words,  Aristotle's 
politics  is  the  rationalization  and  the  improvement  of  the  histori- 
cal State,  or  the  political  form  of  developing  society. 

The  fundamental  characteristics  of  the  Aristotelian  State,  in- 
stead of  being  framed  upon  the  triple  dialectical  divisions  of 
body-soul-mind  are  found  in  the  threefold  natural  divisions  of 
household-village-State.  Indeed,  we  ourselves  used  these  three 
to  indicate  the  nature  and  growth  of  the  political  order.  The 
kind  of  society  which  nature  herself  has  formed  for  daily  sup- 
port is  called  a  family  (oiJ^oi)^  the  society  of  several  families 
instituted  for  mutual  advantage  is  called  a  village  (fame) ;  and 
when  many  villages  join  in  one  society  in  order  that  men  may  live 
happily,  the  result  is  the  State  (folis).  Although  this  is  the 
chronological  order,  the  logical  arrangement  is  the  reverse,  for 
the  State  is  prior  to  the  household  and  the  individual.  Although 
Aristotle  bases  his  theory  of  politics  upon  nature,  he  makes  no 
room  for  the  so-called  "  State  of  Nature  "  which,  as  we  shall  see, 
played  such  an  important  part  in  modern  political  theory.  Since, 
according  to  Aristotle,  man  is  naturally  a  political  animal,  it 
follows  that  a  creature  so  imperfect  as  to  be  incapable  of  so- 
ciety or  so  complete  as  to  have  no  need  of  it  is  "  either  a  beast 
or  a  god."9 

9  Politics,  Bk.  I,  Ch.  II. 


THE  POLITICAL  FACTOR 

THE  BEST  STATE 

But  Aristotle  was  not  satisfied  to  show  that  the  State  was 
a  real  thing;  he  desired  to  indicate  further  that  it  was  good; 
hence  he  inquired  concerning  the  nature  of  the  best  civil  society. 
It  was,  of  course,  impossible  for  him  to  avoid  examining  the 
merits  of  Plato's  ideal  communism.  He  began  to  dismiss  this  in 
a  summary  manner  by  proposing  a  set  of  three  alternatives  — 
having  all  things  in  common,  having  nothing  in  common,  and 
having  some  things  in  common.  It  would  be  impossible  to 
have  a  social  State  with  no  things  in  common,  for  there  must 
be  at  least  the  common  place  of  habitation  or  the  city.  But 
should  citizens  have  in  common  all  things,  including  their 
wives,  children,  and  property?  Aristotle  did  not  fail  to  point 
out  what  indeed  Plato  realized:  namely,  the  practical  difficulty 
to  be  experienced  in  changing  from  a  real  State  to  an  ideal  one. 
He  observed,  further,  that  Plato's  Republic  would  not  be  likely 
to  produce  the  unity  it  aimed  at,  since  the  unity  it  proposed  was 
more  a  metaphysical  oneness  than  a  moral  unanimity.  What 
Aristode's  criticism  really  amounted  to,  was  that  the  children 
who  belong  to  everybody  belong  to  nobody  and,  as  to  property, 
what  is  everybody's  business  is  nobody's  business.10 

The  realism  of  Aristotle's  Politics,  based  upon  the  study  of 
a  hundred  and  fifty  and  more  constitutions,11  is  of  special  value 
in  its  presentation  of  the  kinds  of  government  —  monarchy, 
aristocracy,  commonwealth,  which  have  regard  for  the  interests 
of  the  community.  When  government  becomes  excessive  and 
men  are  ruled  too  much  and  the  political  interest  pertains 
chiefly  to  the  ruler,  there  arise  three  perversions  —  tyranny, 
oligarchy,  democracy.  Aristotle  distinguishes  these  three  forms 
of  government  with  their  perversions  by  an  appeal  to  the  idea 
of  quantity.  Monarchy  is  government  by  one;  aristocracy,  gov- 
ernment by  more  than  one;  and  commonwealth  or  polity, 
government  by  the  citizens  at  large.  Aristotle,  however,  does 
not  mean  to  be  so  obvious  and  mathematical;  accordingly  he 
makes  his  distinction  anew  by  stating  that  tyranny  means  the 

1°  Politics,  Bk.  Ill,  Chs.  I-V. 

11  Dunning,  A  History  of  Political  Theories,  Vol.  I,  Ch.  Ill,  p.  50. 


DEMOCRACY 

despotic  power  of  one  person  over  many,  which  latter  become 
as  slaves;  oligarchy  arises  when  the  supreme  power  of  the  State  is 
lodged  with  the  rich;  democracy  when  the  government  is  in  the 
hands  of  the  poor.  Here,  of  course,  the  natural  assumption  is 
made  that  the  rich  will  be  few  in  number  and  the  poor  many.12 
We  moderns  cannot  help  feeling  interest  in  what  Aristotle  said 
about  the  power  of  money  in  politics;  we  Americans  are  curious 
to  find  out  what  he  had  to  say  about  the  commonwealth,  or 
what  he  usually  called  "  polity." 

DEMOCRACY 

Aristotle  takes  up  the  question  of  who  or  what  shall  rule  in 
the  rational  State  by  asking  in  whose  hands  the  supreme  power 
of  the  State  should  be  placed.  He  answers  the  question  none  too 
clearly  by  pointing  out  the  difficulties  that  arise  in  connection 
with  each  of  the  three  leading  forms  of  government  —  of  mass, 
of  class,  of  monarch.  Under  mass-rule  of  democracy,  in  his 
sense  of  that  term,  there  is  the  danger  that  the  poor  may  lay 
violent  hands  upon  the  property  of  the  rich.  In  an  oligarchy 
of  class-rule,  there  is  the  danger  that  the  wealthy  may  tyran- 
nize over  the  poor;  while  in  a  monarchy,  if  the  power  of  sov- 
ereignty be  in  the  hands  of  one  person,  the  many  will  go  with- 
out the  honors  and  offices  of  the  State.  If  we,  in  following 
Aristotle  as  patiently  as  we  can,  assert  that  it  is  not  any  per- 
son or  class  of  persons,  but  the  Law  which  should  be  sover- 
eign, there  remains  the  difficulty  that  the  Law  must  still  be 
administered  by  men  and,  as  he  says,  "  if  this  law  appoints  an 
aristocracy  or  a  democracy,  how  will  it  help  us  in  our  present 
doubts?"13 

What  interests  us  in  Aristotle's  political  system  is  the  thing 
he  has  to  say  in  favor  of  vesting  the  supreme  power  with  the 
many;  it  is  the  essence  of  democracy,  as  we  understand  that 
term.  Aristotle  inclines  toward  this,  bift  does  not  take  it  for 
granted  as  we  are  in  the  habit  of  doing.  He  refers  to  it  as 
"  the  middle  state,"  regards  it  as  a  political  mean  between  ex- 
tremes, and  pronounces  it  the  best.  Such  a  Golden  Mean  in 

12  Politics,  Bk.  HI,  Chs.  VH-Vni.  1S  II.,  Bk.  Ill,  Ch.  X. 


THE  POLITICAL  FACTOR 

politics  Is  determined  by  placing  it  between  "  the  most  perfect 
in  the  abstract "  and  "  the  best  suited  under  any  given  circum- 
stances." The  third  or  intermediary  polity  is  that  which  is  best 
fitted  for  all  governments  and  thus,  while  not  being  Utopian,  is 
"  imaginary  ";  it  is  a  sort  of  average  polity.14  The  reason  that 
Aristotle  gives  for  vesting  the  supreme  power  with  the  many 
instead  of  the  few  or  the  one  is  found  in  a  kind  of  collective 
logic.  The  many  taken  together  have  more  wealth  and  more 
virtue  than  the  few,  just  as  they  have  more  functions  and  greater 
variety  in  the  power  of  discrimination.  The  man  is  like  a  multi- 
tude of  men  with  "  many  hands,  many  feet,  many  senses,"  or  a 
conglomerate  audience  of  men  who  in  their  collective  capacity 
are  the  best  judges  of  poetry  and  music.15  Accordingly  Aristotle 
concludes  that  the  middle  state  is  the  best  in  both  ethics  and 
politics.  In  the  ideal-real  State,  there  should  not  be  a  majority 
of  those  who  are  handsome  and  strong,  noble  and  rich,  or  a 
majority  of  those  who  are  poor,  weak,  or  mean,  but  a  large 
middle  class  of  average  persons. 

POST-CLASSIC  POLITICS 

Plato  and  Aristotle  give  at  the  beginning  what  might  be 
expected  much  later  on  in  the  development  of  politics  —  the 
ideal  of  a  perfect  State,  but  they  develop  the  superstructure  rather 
than  the  foundation.  Yet  it  is  hardly  enough  to  think  of  man- 
kind as  so  much  raw  material  for  a  republic  or  to  speak  of  man 
as  naturally  a  political  animal.  There  must  be  in  human  nature 
some  political  principle  out  of  which  the  State  may  grow.  The 
modern  thinker,  as  we  shall  see,  found  this  in  Natural  Rights, 
jus  naturde.  Now  this  conception  of  jus  naturals  as  something 
distinct  from  lex  civilis  had  not  really  escaped  the  Greek  mind. 
Their  tragic  poets  were  unusually  fond  of  contrasting  the  innate 
principle  of  natural  justice,  phusis,  with  the  artificial  expression 
of  it  in  established  law,  or  nomos.  The  Antigone  of  Sophocles 
presents  this  contrast  in  a  most  spectacular  manner.  And  not  the 
poets  only,  but  the  philosophers  also;  Aristotle  distinguished  be- 
tween justice  and  law  when  he  contrasted  natural  with  legal 

14  Politics,  Bk.  IV,  Ch.  I.  15  Ib.,  Bk.  Ill,  Ch.  XI. 


POST-CLASSIC  POLITICS  347 

right,  or  the  phusif(pn  with  the  nomi^pn.  Yet  the  principle  of 
Natural  Rights  had  still  to  appear. 

The  theoretical  distinctions  the  Greeks  had  made,  the  Ro- 
mans put  into  practice.  In  elaborating  the  impressive  system 
of  Roman  Law,  the  imperial  jurists  were  called  upon  to  dis- 
tinguish between  the  private  law  of  Rome  and  those  principles  of 
natural  equity  that  had  grown  up  in  connection  with  subject 
people  and  foreigners  generally.  Thus  the  Roman  jurists  ob- 
served that,  as  the  rights  of  Roman  citizens  were  guarded  by 
jus  civile,  so  the  customs  and  rights  of  non-Romans  were  su- 
pervised by  jus  gentium,  which  came  to  be  identified  with 
the  broader  and  deeper  principle  of  jus  naturde.  "  The  scien- 
tific work  of  the  jurists/*  says  Dunning,  "was  to  systematize 
and  to  blend  into  harmonious  unity  the  jus  civile  and  the  jus 
gentium.  Under  the  latter  head  were  included  all  the  various 
systems  which,  by  the  edicts  of  the  successive  praetors,  had 
developed  in  the  court  for  aliens  at  Rome  and  in  the  prov- 
inces."16 It  is  doubtful,  however,  whether  Roman  politics 
put  into  practice  that  which  Roman  Law  had  developed  in 
theory. 

The  Garden  of  Epicurus  and  the  Porch  of  Zeno  the  Stoic 
could  not  be  expected  to  excel  or  even  equal  in  general  philosophy 
the  Academy  of  Plato  and  the  Lyceum  of  Aristotle.  But  per- 
haps the  Epicureans  and  Stoics  advanced  in  political  practicality. 
This  indeed  they  did  and,  although  the  pattern  of  modern 
States  even  today  is  either  Platonic  or  Aristotelian,  the  procedure 
of  political  thinking  has  been  influenced  by  Epicureans  and 
Stoics.  Epicurus  states  in  a  radical  form  the  general  idea  of 
government  by  consent  when  he  insists  that  "  justice  has  no 
independent  existence;  it  results  from  mutual  contracts  and 
establishes  itself  wherever  there  is  a  mutual  agreement  to  guard 
against  doing  or  sustaining  mutual  injury."  The  Stoics  were 
inclined  to  consider  government  in  just  as  loose  a  manner,  but 
not  in  the  Epicurean  form  of  self-interest.  On  the  contrary, 
their  anti-classic  conception  of  government  was  such  as  to 
generate  the  ideals  of  world-citizenship,  a  cosmopolitanism  far 
different  from  the  trim  and  narrow  ideal  of  an-  Athenian  Re- 

16  History  of  Political  Theories,  Vol.  I,  p.  127. 


34g  THE  POLITICAL  FACTOR 

public  or  a  Greek  State.    In  this  large  and  loose  conception  they 
anticipated  the  Christian  ideal  of  the  State. 

THE  CHRISTIAN  STATE 

It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  a  mystic  like  Christ  with  his 
belief  in  a  Kingdom  of  God  not  of  this  world  should  perfect  or 
even  attempt  a  political  system.  The  principle  of  organization, 
except  as  it  might  be  involved  in  selecting  two  small  bands  of 
disciples,  The  Twelve  and  The  Seventy,  was  absent  from  his 
mind.  He  distinguished  sharply  between  the  things  of  Caesar 
and  the  things  of  God,  and  devoted  himself  utterly  to  one  at  the 
expense  of  the  other,  St.  Paul  continued  this  distinction,  but  was 
more  inclined  to  be  diplomatic  toward  secular  power,  with  which 
he  was  well  acquainted  and  for  which  he  as  a  free  Roman  citizen 
had  due  respect.  Hence  the  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles  dealing  with 
the  Roman  citizens  in  the  Christian  community  advises  obedience 
to  magistrates,  saying,  "  Let  every  soul  be  subject  unto  the  higher 
powers.  For  there  is  no  power  but  of  God;  the  powers  that  be 
are  ordained  of  God." 17 

How  did  the  growing  Christian  community  adapt  itself  to  the 
established  State?  At  first  it  adjusted  itself  as  best  it  could, 
practiced  passive  obedience,  and  endured  some  martyrdom. 
Later  it  sought  to  take  possession  of  the  State  and  founded  the 
Holy  Roman  Empire,  only  to  yield  to  the  idea  of  separate,  secu- 
lar national  governments,  with  the  effect  of  producing  a  semi- 
political  and  sometimes  a  semi-religious  conception  of  the 
Church.  In  the  mediaeval  period  with  the  impressive  mass  of 
theology  there  was  also  a  certain  amount  of  political  material. 
This  we  may  consider  as  it  appears  in  the  systems  of  St.  Augustine 
and  St.  Thomas.  In  one  we  find  a  pessimistic,  in  the  other  an 
optimistic  view  of  the  State. 

The  pessimistic  politics  of  St.  Augustine  (354-430)  was  based 
upon  his  theological  views,  especially  those  of  the  Fall  of  Man 
and  his  redemption.  At  the  same  time,  the  author  of  The  City 
of  God  makes  a  significant  but  cynical  observation  upon  the 
history  of  the  race  as  he  understands  it.  This  is  that  Cain,  built 

"  Rom.  XIII,  i. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  STATE  349 

the  city  o£  Enoch  after  he  had  slain  his  brother  Abel,  and  that 
Romulus  founded  the  city  of  Rome  after  his  murder  of  Remus. 
These  traditions  lead  St.  Augustine  to  observe  that  evidently 
civilization  was  founded  upon  fratricide;  they  suggest  to  us  that 
there  is  still  an  unfortunate  connection  between  civilization  and 
war.  The  political  idea  couched  in  The  City  of  God  is  that  the 
State  is  made  necessary  because  of  man's  sinfulness;  the  re- 
deemed, who  belonged  to  the  ciuitas  dei,  have  no  need  of  its 
offices,  which  apply  to  citizens  of  the  ciuitas  mundi.  This  po- 
litical pessimism  was  accompanied  by  a  kind  of  utopianism  in 
that,  with  the  complete  redemption  of  the  race,  the  State  is  des- 
tined to  become  useless.  However,  it  is  the  actual  condition  of 
things  and  the  exigencies  of  historical  situations  that  make  the 
State  necessary  for  fallen  man  and  that  in  the  form  of  a  neces- 
sary evil.  This  was  a  political  conception  far  from  the  usual  one 
but,  as  we  shall  see,  it  was  restated  in  modern  times  by  none 
other  than  Thomas  Paine.  The  extremes  of  the  sacerdotal  and 
the  secular  met  in  pessimistic  politics.  Both  the  devout  theo- 
logian and  the  radical  politician  were  driven  to  the  conclusion 
that  man  stands  in  need  of  control  by  the  strong  arm  of  the 
State. 

Between  St.  Augustine  and  St.  Thomas  there  was  a  lapse  of 
more  than  eight  centuries.  These  witnessed  the  fall  of  Rome, 
the  establishment  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  and  the  develop- 
ment of  feudalism.  Unlike  the  great  Father  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
the  great  Schoolman  had  before  his  eyes  no  declining  empire,  but 
a  growing  political  order.  Hence  it  was  natural  for  Thomas 
Aquinas  to  view  the  social  order  with  much  more  complacency 
than  St.  Augustine  had  enjoyed.  The  secularism  of  Thomas  did 
not  induce  him  to  follow  his  master  Aristotle  into  the  paths  of 
natural  philosophy,  but  he  did  accept  pagan  leadership  in  the 
direction  of  political  thought.  Thus  he  concludes  that  man,  by 
virtue  of  his  helplessness,  his  social  nature,  and  power  of  speech, 
was  destined  for  political  life  and  further  stands  in  need  of  some 
ruling  power  over  him.  In  addition  to  such  obvious  principles 
of  politics,  St.  Thomas  discusses  certain  details  of  statecraft,  as 
cultivation  of  the  soil,  the  fortification  of  cities,  and  the  conduct 
of  commerce. 


35o  THE  POLITICAL  FACTOR 

MODERN  POLITICAL  THEORY 

Modern  political  theory  was  inaugurated  by  Machiavelli 
(1469-1527);  his  famous  work,  The  Prince,  was  published  five 
years  after  his  death.  Machiavelli  was  the  founder  of  modern 
politics  just  as  Galileo,  another  Italian,  became  the  founder  of 
modern  physics  a  century  later.  As  Galileo  eliminated  the  hu- 
man or  secondary  qualities  from  the  physical  world  in  order 
to  make  it  the  subject  of  pure  science,  so  Machiavelli  reduced  the 
idea  of  the  State  to  the  principle  of  force  or  purely  material 
power.  The  result  of  this  was  not  political  science  so  much  as  it 
was  "  politics  "  in  the  cynical  sense  of  that  term.  Unlike  Aris- 
totle long  before  him  and  Grotius,  who  was  to  follow  him,, 
Machiavelli  based  his  idea  of  the  State  upon  statecraft  rather 
than  upon  a  political  principle  like  justice.  He  introduced 
into  politics  a  principle  which  has  since  developed  all  too  fully 
and  one  which  today  we  are  trying  to  reduce  to  a  minimum  — 
the  principle  of  diplomacy. 

Although  Machiavelli's  spirit  was  thoroughly  anti-ecclesiastical 
and  his  method  distinct  from  that  of  mediaeval  thought,  his 
political  theory  was  of  no  value  to  the  Reformation.  In  like 
manner,  the  political  weapon  that  Machiavelli  forged  was  of  no 
service  to  the  anti-monarchical  thinkers  who  appeared  after  the 
death  of  Luther  and  Calvin.  Hence  the  two  great  movements 
of  the  XVIth  century,  one  opposed  to  the  Pope  and  the  whole 
Petrine  principle  and  the  other  in  opposition  to  the  Prince  and 
the  Caesarean  idea,  proceeded  without  support  from  the  funda- 
mental work  on  modern  politics.  Thus  the  layman  is  often  at 
a  loss  to  comprehend  the  reputation  that  the  name  of  Machiavelli 
enjoys.  In  behalf  of  his  ideal  "  Prince,"  he  sought  to  make  a 
political  art  of  tyranny,  which  was  the  very  thing  both  ecclesiasti- 
cal and  political  thinkers  were  seeking  to  avoid. 

PROTESTANT  POLITICS 

The  anti-ecclesiastical  and  anti-monarchical  movements  of 
early  modern  times  were  not  productive  of  impressive  works  in 
the  science  of  politics,  but  they  contributed  a  spirit  and  a  method. 


PROTESTANT  POLITICS  ^ 

In  the  case  of  the  German  Reformation,  the  sentiments  of  Luther 
involved  a  philosophy  of  rights  although  this  was  not  based 
upon  the  principle  of  jus  natural?.  These  sentiments  were  ex- 
pressed in  his  tracts  The  Freedom  of  a  Christian  Man  (1520) 
and  To  the  Christian  Nobility  of  the  German  Nation  (1520). 
Unlike  Machiavelli,  Luther  in  opposing  the  Catholic  Church  was 
not  thereby  opposing  the  idea  of  the  Church  as  the  community 
of  believers.  And  in  contrast  with  the  anti-monarchical  thinkers 
who  were  shortly  to  appear,  he  did  not  question  the  right  of 
secular  power,  but  upheld  the  idea  of  passive  obedience.  A  more 
theoretical  conception  of  politics  was  advanced  by  Melanchthon, 
who  based  his  theory  of  the  State  upon  Natural  Law,  lex  naturae, 
as  this  is  implanted  in  the  heart  of  man  by  the  Deity.  The  Law 
of  Nature  became  the  basis  of  the  secular  government  that  Luther 
had  done  no  more  than  take  for  granted. 

The  political  principle  was  a  part  of  and  an  essential  ingredient 
in  Calvin's  comprehensive  system  of  theology.  In  his  Institutes 
one  finds  a  kind  of  Protestant  parallel  to  the  Sum  ma  of  Aquinas. 
In  Book  IV  of  his  classic  work,  Calvin  makes  abundant  room  for 
secular  government,  looks  upon  it  as  indispensable,  and  attributes 
to  it  the  functions  of  preserving  life,  safeguarding  property,  and 
keeping  order.  He  was  far  indeed  from  the  modern  idea,  put 
forth  a  century  later  by  Spinoza,  that  theology  and  politics  are 
distinct  in  nature  and  should  be  kept  apart  in  their  operations. 
In  the  case  of  Calvin  with  his  severe  doctrine  of  predestination, 
it  is  hardly  possible  to  see  how  a  paralyzing  theology  could  be- 
come a  vivifying  principle  of  political  rights.  "  People  have  some- 
times wondered  how  the  Calvinistic  doctrine  of  Election  .  .  . 
could  have  been  held  by  men  of  the  most  vigorous  character  and 
should  have  been  the  religious  stimulus  and  education  of  the  very 
nations  which  struggled  most  stubbornly  and  most  successfully 
for  civil  liberty.  Consider  to  what  the  doctrine  was  opposed  and 
the  mystery  is  explained.  The  salvation  of  the  individual  depends 
solely  on  the  eternal  and  unalterable  decree  of  God  ...  it  de- 
pends not  at  all  on  the  will  or  act  of  any  ecclesiastical  authority, 
of  any  human  authority  whatever.  The  doctrine  of  Election  robs 
the  priest  of  his  power;  it  is  the  appeal  from  man  to  God." 18 
18  Ritchie,  Natural  Rights,  Ch.  I,  pp.  18-19. 


THE  POLITICAL  FACTOR 

In  addition  to  these  examples  of  special  pleading  exhibited  by 
the  Protestant  in  his  political  opposition  to  the  pope  there  were 
similar  pleas  put  forth  by  both  Protestant  and  Catholic.19  These 
were  directed  against  the  secular  ruler;  they  assumed  the  form 
of  anti-monarchical  documents.  They  sprang  from  Huguenot 
sources  and  were  inspired  for  the  most  part  by  the  massacre  of 
St.  Bartholomew.  The  historical  phase  of  this  political  move- 
ment of  pre-modern  times  cannot  concern  us  here,  but  we  must 
not  fail  to  observe  that  in  the  course  of  the  controversy  over  ty- 
rants the  political  thinkers  found  it  expedient  to  make  use  of 
ideas  which  were  to  become  the  very  foci  of  modern  political 
philosophy —  the  original  State  of  Nature  and  the  subsequent 
formation  of  government  by  Social  Contract.  These  were  by  no 
means  novel,  although  they  were  forgotten  ideas  when  they  were 
advanced  by  the  political  thinkers  of  the  XVIIth  century.  We 
have  observed  already  that  something  like  government  by  consent 
of  the  governed  as  also  the  idea  of  a  State  made  by  mutual  com- 
pact were  ideas  not  absent  from  the  theological  and  political 
literature  of  the  Hebrews,  Greeks,  and  Romans.  There  was  also 
in  the  ideas  of  Eden,  the  Golden  Age,  and  the  pre-political  con- 
dition of  mankind  generally,  some  suggestion  of  the  dominant 
idea  of  early  modern  politics;  namely,  the  State  of  Nature.  These 
ancient  ideals  of  the  State  were  recalled  during  the  Renaissance; 
the  Reformation  resurrected  the  Hebrew  idea;  the  Revival  of 
Learning  restored  the  Roman  conception  of  government  by  con- 
tract and  gave  the  thinkers  of  the  Enlightenment  certain  his- 
torical patterns  to  follow. 

THE  STATE  OF  NATURE 

The  political  notion  of  an  original,  pre-political,  and  even  pre- 
social  condition  of  mankind  was  so  spectacular  in  its  day  that 
it  is  worth  some  detailed  consideration.  The  exponents  of  the 
idea  that  the  life  of  the  race  began  in  a  State  of  Nature  had  a  weak 
conception  of  history,  no  idea  of  evolution,  and  no  data  of  mod- 
ern anthropology.  They  proceeded  according  to  tradition  or  con- 
jecture. Tradition  supplied  some  general  conception  of  primitive 
1&  Dunning,  History  of  Political  Theories t  Vol.  II,  p,  47,  note. 


THE  STATE  OF  NATURE  353 

times  like  "  the  good  old  days  "  or  a  period  of  savagery.  For 
the  most  part,  the  political  thinker  of  the  Enlightenment  was  in- 
clined to  conjecture  what  the  State  of  Nature  must  have  been  by 
considering  what  modern  man  would  be  if  law  were  removed. 
Thus  the  status  naturalis  of  mankind  amounted  to  the  status 
civilis  minus  contemporary  law  and  government.  This  was  most 
strikingly  presented  by  Hobbes,  in  whose  mind  nature  so  dis- 
sociated men  and  set  them  at  variance  with  one  another  that  the 
State  of  Nature  was  "  the  war  of  all  against  all  —  bellum  omnium 
contra  omnes" 

Yet  Hobbes  was  by  no  means  the  first  political  thinker  to  base 
his  theory  of  government  upon  such  an  anarchistic  conception. 
Polybius  (c.  204-123  B.C.),  the  Greek  historian  of  the  Roman  Re- 
public, had  suggested  that  the  starting  point  of  civilization  was 
from  a  pre-social  condition  in  which  men  were  unfamiliar  with 
the  arts  of  civilization.  In  the  middle  of  the  XVth  century,  the 
idea  appeared  again  in  The  Rise  and  Power  of  the-  Roman  Em- 
pire by  Aeneas  Sylvius  (Pope  Pius  II,  1405-1464) .  The  State  of 
Nature  according  to  this  author  was  the  animal-like  existence  of 
the  first  human  family  after  the  expulsion  from  Eden  and  until 
reason  taught  them  to  assemble  in  communities,  build  cities,  and 
cultivate  the  arts  of  civilization.20  A  more  agreeable  picture  of 
man's  natural  condition  before  the  organization  of  society  was 
painted  by  Juan  de  Mariana  in  his  work  On  Kingship  and  the 
Education  of  a  King  (1599).  In  their  natural  state  men  lived  like 
animals,  sought  food,  and  propagated  their  kind.  Such  a  pre- 
social  condition  had  its  advantages  in  that  nature  herself  furnished 
man  with  the  requirements  of  food  and  shelter,  while  the  dis- 
advantages of  private  property  were  unknown.  It  was  because 
of  the  increase  of  wants  and  the  weakness  of  man  that  mankind 
grouped  in  the  form  of  governments.  This  was  a  natural  form 
of  government,  the  rule  of  one  man  unrestrained  by  law,  which 
in  the  course  of  time  developed  in  an  extensive  and  elaborate 
fashion.21 

The  modern  political  thinker  found  the  idea  of  the  status 
naturalis  most  convenient  for  his  conception  of  political  life,  so 

20  /£.,  Vol.  I,  P.  283. 

21  #,,VoLH,pf>.  68-69. 

S.T. — 24 


354  THE  POLITICAL  FACTOR 

that  It  became  a  commonplace  throughout  the  XVIIth  and 
XVIIIth  centuries.  The  State  of  Nature  in  its  modern  form  did 
not  play  any  essential  part  in  the  political  theory  of  Jean  Bodin 
(1530-1596).  His  conception  of  politics  was  too  historical  to  let 
him  develop  the  idea  of  any  pre-social  condition  of  mankind; 
he  finds  it  more  feasible  to  start  with  the  organized  family  rather 
than  the  free  individual.  Something  similar  to  this  might  be 
said  in  connection  with  Hugo  Grotius  (1583-1645),  who  was  of 
extraordinary  influence  in  the  development  of  the  political  idea 
in  modern  times.  The  position  of  Grotius  is  rendered  ambigu- 
ous by  the  fact  that,  like  Aristotle,  he  thinks  of  man  as  by  nature 
social,  so  that  his  theory  of  politics  makes  no  place  for  a  pre- 
social  condition.  What  Grotius  does  suggest  is  this:  while  so- 
ciety is  as  old  as  man,  the  State  is  not.  This  conveys  the  idea  that 
Grotius  provides  for  a  pre-political  but  not  a  pre-social  State  of 
mankind.  The  units  in  this  pre-political  condition  were  not  iso- 
lated individuals  but  separate  families,  which  were  under  the 
provisional  laws  of  patriarchal  government. 

THE  WAR  OF  ALL  AGAINST  ALL 

Now,  it  was  with  Thomas  Hobbes  (1588-1679)  that  the  idea 
of  the  State  of  Nature  assumed  its  most  striking  form.  In  discuss- 
ing this  notion  of  a  primitive  and  pre-political  condition  of  man- 
kind, Hobbes  employs  what  we  are  calling  the  method  of  conjec- 
ture rather  than  that  of  tradition.  Like  Kant,  who  was  about 
the  last  of  the  Natural  Rights  School,  Hobbes,  who  was  among 
the  very  first,  treats  the  whole  political  problem  in  the  form  of  an 
"  as  if."  That  is,  political  society  as  we  enjoy  it  today  is  as  if  it 
had  been  manufactured  out  of  the  raw  materials  furnished  by  the 
State  of  Nature.  Why  did  Hobbes,  a  theoretical  materialist,  pro- 
ceed in  this  idealistic  manner  ?  Perhaps  because  he  realized  that 
his  picture  of  the  State  of  Nature,  preposterous  as  it  was,  could 
not  be  accepted  as  a  true  picture  of  primitive  mankind.  More 
plausible  is  it  to  suggest  that  Hobbes*  conception  of  the  State  of 
Nature  was  in  harmony  with  his  general  method,  which  was  a 
deductive  and  almost  geometrical  one.  If  we  bear  in  mind  that 
Hobbes  was  a  devout  follower  of  Euclid,  we  can  more  easily 


THE  WAR  OF  ALL  AGAINST  ALL  355 

realize  how  it  was  that  Spinoza,  who  perfected  the  more  geo- 
metrico,  should  have  followed  Hobbes'  principles  of  political 
philosophy.  But  what  was  the  Hobbist  State  of  Nature? 

It  was  not  an  actual  condition  of  things  discoverable  in  the  rec- 
ords of  the  past,  according  to  Hobbes;  for  he  had  no  great  respect 
for  history.  The  State  of  Nature  was  rather  a  supposed  condition 
of  things  arrived  at  theoretically  by  a  process  of  elimination.  It 
was  mankind  minus  the  civilization  that  he  had  placed  upon  him- 
self, or  stark  humanity;  a  state  of  affairs  in  which  all  men  were 
equal.  When  Hobbes  used  that  conventional  expression,  he 
spoke  with  more  cynicism  than  sincerity,  his  idea  being  that  men 
imagine  themselves  equal  and  strive  by  a  process  of  leveling  to 
promote  equality.  One  may  be  stronger  in  body,  another  quicker 
in  mind,  so  that  the  weakest  has  strength  enough  to  kill  the 
strongest  by  some  sort  of  mental  machination.  The  causes  of 
quarrel  among  men  are  competition,  which  makes  for  gain;  diffi- 
dence, craving  safety;  and  glory,  which  makes  men  struggle  for 
reputation.  These  natural  causes  are  operative  in  the  State  of 
Nature  wherein  men  live  without  a  common  power  to  keep  them 
in  awe.  Then  "  they  are  in  that  condition  which  is  called  Warre, 
and  such  a  Warre  as  is  of  every  man  against  every  man.  For 
Warre  consists  not  in  Battell  only  or  the  act  of  fighting,  but  in  a 
tract  of  time  wherein  the  will  to  contend  by  Battell  is  sufficiently 
known."  Hobbes  then  likens  war  to  weather.  "  For  as  the  na- 
ture of  Faule  weather  lyeth  not  in  a  showre  or  two  of  rain  but 
an  inclination  thereto  of  many  days  together,  so  the  nature  of 
Warre  consisteth  not  in  actuall  fighting,  but  in  the  known  dispo- 
sition thereto,  during  all  the  time  there  is  no  assurance  to  the 
contrary."  22 

Hobbes  becomes  more  explicit  in  his  description  of  the  status 
naturdis  when  he  states  that  it  is  a  condition  which  affords  no 
place  for  industry,  culture  of  the  earth,  navigation  of  the  sea, 
no  architecture,  geography,  chronology,  arts  or  letters,  or  society; 
"  and  which  is  worst  of  all,  continuall  feare  and  danger  of  violent 
death,  and  the  life  of  man  solitary,  poore,  nasty,  brutish  and 
short."  In  thus  depicting  the  natural  or  pre-social  condition  of 
the  race,  Hobbes  indicates  very  plainly  that  he  is  proceeding  ac- 

25  Leviathan,  Ck  XHI. 


356  THE  POLITICAL  FACTOR 

cording  to  "  inference  made  from  the  passions,"  which  deductive 
argument  is  followed  by  a  bit  of  empiricism.  It  was  in  connec- 
tion with  experience  that  he  describes  the  condition  of  an  English- 
man  in  the  middle  of  the  XVIIth  century. 

PESSIMISTIC  POLITICS 

"  It  may  seem  strange  to  some  man  that  has  not  well  weighed 
these  things  that  nature  should  thus  dissociate  and  render  men 
apt  to  invade  and  destroy  one  another.  .  .  .  Let  him  therefore 
consider  with  himselfe,  when  taking  a  journey  he  armes  him- 
self e  and  seeks  to  go  well  accompanied;  when  going  to  sleep  he 
locks  his  dores,  when  even  in  his  own  house  he  locks  his  chests, 
and  this  when  he  knowes  there  bee  Lawes  and  publike  Officers 
armed  to  revenge  all  injuries  shall  bee  done  him;  what  opinion 
he  has  of  his  fellow  subjects  when  he  rides  armed,  of  his  fellow 
Citizens  when  he  locks  his  dores  and  of  his  children  and  servants 
when  he  locks  his  chests.  Does  he  not  there  as  much  accuse  man- 
kind by  his  actions  as  I  do  by  my  words?  "23 

The  underlying  principles  of  the  Hobbist  system  may  be  stated 
in  propositions  as  well  as  in  this  pictorial  way.  Hobbes  the  ma- 
terialist was  none  the  less  a  rationalist;  his  system  of  politics  is 
decidedly  wanting  in  principles  of  actual  experience.  According 
to  his  reasoning,  there  is  a  fundamental  Law  of  Nature:  seek 
peace  and  follow  it.  In  contrast  with  this  law  is  the  instinctive 
principle  of  self-assertion,  self-defense  peculiar  to  animal  life.  The 
two  laws  of  man's  being  thus  arrange  themselves  in  the  form  of 
sharp  contrast  between  Natural  Right,  which  leads  to  war,  and 
the  Law  of  Nature  leading  to  peace;  or  jus-bellum  and  lex-pax. 
Now,  as  we  have  seen,  Hobbes  was  more  intent  upon  devising  a 
scheme  of  politics  for  the  present  than  of  discovering  the  pre- 
political  situation  in  the  past.  He  will  not  listen  to  the  conven- 
tional ideals  of  Aristotle  and  Grotius,  who  assumed  the  social 
nature  of  man,  since  he  believed  that  nature  does  not  group  men 
gregariously  but  dissociates  them,  rendering  them  "apt  to  in- 
vade and  destroy  one  another."  His  contempt  for  history  in 
general  is  akin  to  his  attitude  toward  natural  history,  hence  he 

23  Leviathan,  CL  XIII. 


PESSIMISTIC  POLITICS  357 

can  see  no  analogy  between  the  social  life  of  insects  and  that 
of  men. 

"  Men  are  continually  in  competition  for  Honour  and  Dignity 
which  these  creatures  are  not,  and  consequently  amongst  men 
there  ariseth  on  that  ground  Envy  and  Hatred  and  finally  Warre; 
but  amongst  these  not  so.  ...  Amongst  these  creatures,  the  com- 
mon good  differeth  not  from  the  private,  and  being  by  nature 
enclined  to  the  private  they  procure  thereby  the  common  benefit. 
.  .  .  These  creatures  having  not,  as  man,  the  use  of  reason  do 
not  see  or  think  they  see  any  fault  in  the  administration  of  their 
common  business,  whereas  amongst  men  there  are  very  many 
that  think  themselves  wiser  and  abler  to  govern  the  Publique 
better  than  the  rest.  .  .  .  These  creatures,  though  they  have  some 
use  of  voice  in  making  knowne  to  one  another  their  desires  and 
other  affections,  yet  they  want  that  art  of  words  by  which  some 
men  can  represent  to  others  that"  which  is  Good  in  the  likeness 
of  Evill  and  Evill  in  the  likeness  of  Good.  ...  As  long  as  they 
be  at  ease  they  are  not  offended  with  their  fellowes  whereas  Man 
is  then  most  troublesome  when  he  is  most  at  ease,  for  then  it  is 
that  he  loves  to  showe  his  Wisdome  and  controule  the  actions  of 
them  that  governe  the  Common-wealth."  24 

The  contrast  between  Grotius  and  Hobbes  in  their  views  of 
man's  social  nature  did  not  escape  the  eye  of  Samuel  Pufendorf 
(1632-1694) .  With  the  synthetic  tendency  peculiar  to  the  German 
mind,  he  endeavored  to  harmonize  the  social  and  anti-social  in 
the  earlier  thinkers.  This  he  does  by  attributing  society  to  the 
instinctively  social  nature  of  man,  the  political  State  to  a  direct 
and  rational  act  on  the  part  of  man.  Pufendorf  does  not  make  it 
clear  whether  the  State  of  Nature  is  society  minus  civilization,  as 
this  may  be  conjectured,  or  society  in  its  pre-political  form.  He 
does  refer  to  it  as  a  condition  of  society  apart  from  political  or- 
ganization and  is  inclined  to  regard  it  optimistically  as  a  general 
condition  of  peace  rather  than  war.  Furthermore,  he  declares 
that  the  State  of  Nature  would  be  a  satisfactory  condition  if  men 
lived  according  to  reason;  but  inasmuch  as  most  men  are  ruled 
by  selfish  passion,  the  State  of  Nature  would  result  in  a  condition 
making  it  necessary  for  men  to  live  under  the  control  of  author- 

**  ib.,  du  xvii. 


THE  POLITICAL  FACTOR 

ity.  There  is  Indeed  some  sort  of  organization  in  the  status 
naturalis,  but  not  enough  to  obviate  the  necessity  of  civil  society, 
or  commonwealth.25 

THE  HISTORICAL  VIEW 

In  the  hands  of  John  Locke  (1632-1704),  the  State  of  Nature  is 
made  the  pre-political  form  of  human  existence  which  Grotius  had 
suggested  and  Pufendorf  reaffirmed.  According  to  Locke,  "  men 
living  together  according  to  reason  and  without  authority  to 
judge  between  them  is  properly  the  state  of  nature." 26  In  this 
primitive  condition,  men  are  aware  of  Natural  Rights  and  tend 
to  respect  them,  so  that  their  inclination  is  toward  peace  rather 
than  war;  at  the  same  time  the  State  of  Nature  is  so  imperfect  as  to 
be  intolerable.  Locke,  however,  was  so  impressed  by  the  possibili- 
ties of  the  Natural  State  as  a  possible  condition  in  the  history  of 
mankind  that  he  assumes  to  find  traces  of  it  in  history.  "  Romu- 
lus at  the  head  of  a  numerous  colony  from  Alba  was  the  first 
founder  of  the  Roman  State;  this  colony  was  in  the  original  state 
of  nature,  free  and  independent  of  any  dominion  whatsoever." 27 

The  French  manner  of  dealing  with  the  notion  that  we  are  pur- 
suing was  quite  different  from  that  of  the  English,  hence  the 
State  of  Nature  assumes  a  more  dreamy,  more  delightful  form. 
This  we  observe  in  Montesquieu  and  Rousseau.  The  "  man  "  of 
Montesquieu  was  not  the  politician  of  Grotius,  the  beast  o£ 
Hobbes,  or  the  rationalist  of  Locke.  He  was  more  human,  more 
genial,  and  filled  with  esprit.  "  Pre-social  man  is,"  according  to 
Montesquieu,  "  a  timid,  trembling  creature,  occupied  chiefly  with 
panic-stricken  flight  from  the  dangers  real  and  imaginary,  which 
surround  him." 2S  The  formation  of  society  with  the  develop- 
ment of  civilization  and  culture  gives  man  strength  and  develops 
a  state  of  war.  This  was  the  reverse  of  Hobbes'  idea,  according 
to  which  men  progress  from  war  to  peace  as  they  come  forth 
from  their  natural  condition.  Moreover,  it  was  preparatory  for 

25  Dunning,  History  of  Political  Theories,  Vol.  II,  pp.  319-322. 

26  "Two  Treatises  on  Government,"  Wor\s,  nth  ed.,  Vol.  V,  p.  348. 

27  Fox  Bourne,  Life  of  John  Locke,  Vol.  I,  p.  148. 

28  Dunning,  History  of  Political  Theories,  Vol.  II,  p.  397. 


ROUSSEAU'S  ROMANTIC  POLITICS          350 

the  genial  ideal  of  Rousseau  that  the  State  of  Nature  is  an  idyllic 
condition,  to  which  man  should  return. 


ROUSSEAU'S  ROMANTIC  POLITICS 

Rousseau  (1712-1778)  resembled  his  co-patriot  Montesquieu  in 
his  genial  conception  of  the  State  of  Nature,  except  that  he  was 
not  inclined  to  regard  it  as  a  condition  that  engendered  fear  in  the 
human  heart.  In  like  manner,  Rousseau  resembles  Hobbes  in 
regarding  the  status  naturdis  as  an  idea  rather  than  a  historical 
fact;  he  differs  from  Hobbes  in  that  his  primitive  man  is  a  good 
savage  and  not  a  crude  creature  of  force.  Moreover,  Rousseau 
is  distinguished  from  all  others  who  developed  the  idea  of  nature 
in  that  he  was  enthusiastic  about  it  and  considered  it  a  condition 
to  which,  in  a  way,  mankind  might  well  return.  Rousseau's  op- 
timism is  thus  a  counterbalance  to  Hobbes'  pessimism.  In  his 
Discourse  on  Inequality  (1753),  Rousseau  paints  a  romantic  pic- 
ture of  nomadic  existence,  in  which  the  happy  savage  is  quite  non- 
chalant about  his  abode  or  the  things  that  generally  go  to  make 
up  civilized  existence.  In  this  primeval  condition,  mankind 
found  its  perfect  happiness,  for  man  was  independent  of  society 
and  with  other  men  rejoiced  in  the  feeling  of  equality. 

But  mankind  increases  in  number,  differentiates  into  races,  dis- 
covers industries,  and  develops  the  utilities  of  civilization.  Fields 
are  planted,  tools  made,  houses  built,  and  hearths  with  their 
fires  installed.  Then  inequality  sets  in,  due  to  the  fact  that  some 
are  stronger  physically  and  can  do  more,  others  more  acute 
mentally  and  can  acquire  more.  The  savage  was  beginning  to  be 
civilized.  However,  Rousseau  does  not  wholly  disapprove  of  such 
simple  civilization,  probably  because  he  realized  that  it  repre- 
sented a  more  authentic  picture  of  historical  man  than  the  State  of 
the  bon  sauvage  had  given,  and  because,  further,  it  was  still  far 
simpler  than  the  civilization  that  he  knew  and  despised.  In- 
deed, the  flexibility  of  Rousseau's  methodology  was  such  that, 
having  begun  by  extolling  the  bon  sauvage  and  having  advanced 
from  that  to  praise  of  primitive  civilization,  he  ends  by  elaborating 
a  doctrine  of  sovereignty.  However,  in  going  to  the  other  ex- 
treme, Rousseau  does  not  mean  the  sovereignty  of  the  monarch, 


THE  POLITICAL  FACTOR 

but  that  of  the  general  will  or  the  sovereignty  of  the  community. 
It  was  in  this  conception  that  he  sought  to  fuse  the  natural  with 
the  civil,  the  ideals  of  natural  liberty  with  the  principles  of  po- 
litical  authority. 

It  was  by  no  means  extraordinary  that  the  sentimental  ideals 
o£  Rousseau  should  be  adopted  by  the  speculative  thinkers  of 
Germany,  who  might  have  built  up  their  political  doctrines  on  the 
native  ground  prepared  by  their  own  Pufendorf  .  The  apparent 
reason  why  Kant,  Fichte,  and  Hegel  followed  Rousseau  is  to 
be  found  in  the  fact  that  this  talented  but  erratic  French  thinker 
detached  the  political  ideal  from  earth  and  the  domain  of  imme- 
diate existence  and  made  it  a  sentiment  about  which  one,  like 
these  transcendental  Germans,  might  speculate  freely.  The  po- 
litical systems  of  these  philosophers  are  of  value  in  elucidating 
their  respective  philosophies,  but  of  much  less  worth  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  political  idea  which  had  been  completed  before 
they  began  to  consider  it.  In  the  case  of  Hegel  (1770-1831),  the 
conception  of  the  State  as  an  expression  of  Spirit  or  Geist  was 
responsible  for  the  development  of  the  idea  that  society  is  an 
organism  and  that  the  State  possesses  personality.  Hegel  was  of 
influence  also  in  suggesting  to  Karl  Marx  that  it  is  by  the  negation 
of  one  polity,  like  that  of  capitalism,  that  we  proceed  to  the 
higher  level  of  another,  the  communistic  one.  With  the  German 
thinkers  mentioned  we  come  to  the  end  of  the  classic  idea  as  far 
as  the  State  of  Nature  is  concerned. 


THE  SOCIAL  CONTRACT 

Such  in  outline  was  the  idea  of  the  State  of  Nature  as  this  pre- 
vailed during  tie  XVIIth  and  XVIIIth  centuries.  We  have  de- 
voted so  much  space  to  it  that  there  remains  little  room  for  the 
companion  concept  —  the  Social  Contract,  However,  little  ad- 
ditional need  be  said  about  this  second  politkal  ideal;  it  may  be 
inferred  from  what  has  been  said  about  the  first  one.  In  the  case 
of  those  who  handled  these  characteristic  ideas,  the  analysis  led 
to  the  synthesis.  Reason  had  led  them  to  divide  mankind  into 
parts  and  it  was  reason  that  then  induced  them  to  put  the  social 
parts  together  in  the  form  of  a  political  whole.  The  leading  idea 


THE  SOCIAL  CONTRACT  361 

was  that  primitive  men  came  to  realize  that  their  anarchic  con- 
dition was  intolerable,  whence  they  were  led  to  consider  the  feasi- 
bility if  not  necessity  of  forming  a  status  civilis  to  supplant  the 
status  naturalis.  This  produced  the  State;  according  to  more 
radical  theorists,  it  was  tie  cause  of  society  itself. 

Already  we  have  referred  to  the  contract  conception  of  govern- 
ment supposed  to  have  obtained  with  the  ancients,  especially  the 
Hebrews  and  the  Romans.  We  have  now  to  observe  directly  and 
briefly  how  this  general  idea  received  definite  form  in  modern 
politics.  Grotius  might  be  thought  to  remain  aloof  from  the 
contract  idea,  since  his  conception  of  man  was  that  of  a  social 
being.  Yet  Grotius  did  not  fail  to  state  that  civil  society  had  been 
brought  about  by  man;  but  how?  By  deduction  from  the  very 
nature  of  man  in  which  jus  naturalc  is  an  ingredient,  not  by  act  of 
will  on  the  part  of  man  or  even  of  God.  For  the  Law  of  Nature 
would  hold,  said  Grotius,  even  though  there  were  no  God  — 
non  esse  deum.  It  would  be  a  mistake  to  assume  that  this  devout 
Dutch  theologian  placed  politics  upon  an  atheistic  basis  after  the 
manner  of  the  French  and  perhaps  also  the  American  revolu- 
tionists. Hence  we  had  better  attribute  his  bold  assertion  of 
the  autonomous  character  of  jus  naturale  to  his  extremely  ration- 
alistic methodology.  Further  to  explain  his  conception  of  the  State 
we  might  refer  to  it  as  something  which  in  his  mind  was  formed 
by  a  ##£tf-contract.  Grotius  was  strong  in  naturalism,  whereby 
he  was  able  to  assert  the  social  nature  of  mankind,  but  corre- 
spondingly weak  in  his  conception  of  sovereignty.  In  Hobbes 
we  find  the  very  reverse  of  this. 

Hobbes  is  perfectly  clear  in  his  description  of  the  contract  and 
just  as  consistent  in  the  deduction  of  it  from  the  State  of  Nature, 
"  that  miserable  condition  of  Warre."  As  he  says,  it  is  more  than 
consent  or  concord;  certainly  it  is  not  what  we  should  understand 
as  the  consent  of  the  governed.  Perhaps  we  might  regard  it  the 
way  Emerson  regarded  all  society  —  as  a  "foul  compromise/' 
In  the  direct  language  of  Hobbes,  the  contract  is  "  as  if  every  man 
should  say  to  every  man,  I  Authorise  and  give  up  my  Right  of 
Governing  my  selfe  to  this  Man  or  this  Assembly,  on  this  con- 
dition that  thou  give  up  thy  Right  to  him  and  Authorise  all  his 
actions  in  like  manner.  This  doae,  the  Multitude  so  united  in 


362  THE  POLITICAL  FACTOR 

one  Person,  is  called  a  Common-Wealth,  in  latine  Civitas.  This 
is  the  generation  of  that  great  Leviathan,  or  rather  (to  speake 
more  reverently)  of  that  Mortall  God  to  which  wee  owe  under 
the  Immortall  God  our  peace  and  defense."  29 

THE  GENERAL  WILL 

Unlike  the  anti-monarchists  of  the  Renaissance,  Hobbes  does 
not  provide  for  any  covenant  on  the  part  of  the  monarch;  the 
surrender  is  altogether  on  the  part  of  the  people,  who  are  sup- 
posed to  be  satisfied  with  the  security  and  peace  which  the  status 
dvilis,  thus  created,  will  provide.  The  subjects  of  a  government 
cannot  change  its  form  nor  the  sovereign  forfeit  his  power.  No 
individual  can  protest  against  the  sovereign,  since  that  would 
automatically  replace  him  in  the  original  condition  of  war, 
wherein  any  one  would  have  the  natural  right  to  kill  him.  No 
matter  what  the  sovereign  may  do,  his  acts  cannot  be  judged  by 
his  subjects;  still  less  can  he  be  punished  for  them.  It  is  for  the 
sovereign  to  judge  what  is  necessary  for  peace  in  the  State 
and  what  may  be  considered  the  private  property  of  the  indi- 
vidual subject.  To  the  sovereign  belongs  also  the  right  to  de- 
cide controversies;  hence  the  familiar  laws  of  meum  and  tuum 
are  out  of  place.  He  may  at  his  own  discretion  make  war  and 
peace,  choose  as  he  will  such  counselors  as  these  acts  may  require, 
and  to  these  he  may  bestow  such  titles  of  honor  as  he  may  please. 
Now,  it  is  only  as  we  realize  how  the  specter  of  war  haunted  the 
mind  of  Hobbes  that  we  can  account  for  such  a  drastic  system 
of  government.  We  may  observe  further  by  way  of  extenuating 
such  political  thinking  that,  in  general,  Hobbes  proceeded  aca- 
demically somewhat  after  the  manner  of  Plato  and  that,  in  par- 
ticular, he  referred  to  the  fatal  compact  by  stating  that  "  as  if  " 
every  man  had  entered  into  the  political  agreement  in  order  to 
escape  the  possible  ills  of  the  State  of  Nature. 

When  we  turn  to  Locke's  conception  of  contract,  we  tend  to  re- 
turn to  the  milder  conception  of  Grotius.  As  Grotius  had  thought 
of  man  as  by  nature  social,  Locke  regarded  the  State  of  Nature  as 
a  fairly  peaceful  one,  certainly  not  the  Hobbist  condition  of  uni- 

29  Leviathan,  Ch.  XVU 


THE  GENERAL  WILL 

versal  war.  Accordingly,  Locke's  social  contract  is  much  looser 
than  the  iron-bound  one  of  The  Leviathan.  The  difference  be- 
tween Locke  and  Hobbes  is  this:  Locke's  system  calls  upon 
the  individual  to  give  up  some  of  his  rights  to  the  community, 
whereas  Hobbes  had  called  upon  him,  viewed  as  a  malicious 
egoist,  to  surrender  all  of  his  rights  to  the  sovereign.  The  par- 
ticular rights  that  the  Lockian  individual  surrenders  are  those  of 
himself  executing  the  Law  of  Nature  and  punishing  offenses 
against  it.  Then,  the  community  to  which  he  has  surrendered 
these  rights  is  something  of  which  he  is  a  part.  If  there  is  to  be 
a  sovereign  community,  this  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  public  will, 
which  in  its  own  way  is  limited  as  the  will  or  right  of  one  indi- 
vidual limits  that  of  another.  Now,  this  amounts  to  saying  that 
society  is  superior  to  government  and  the  authority  of  the  people 
greater  than  that  of  law. 

Rousseau's  conception  of  sovereignty  affords  trouble  for  all  who 
look  for  logical  consistency  and  are  not  satisfied  with  a  glow  of 
rhetorical  expression.  In  the  parallel  case  of  Hobbes,  we  were 
not  surprised  when  The  Leviathan  effected  the  transmutation 
from  the  anarchistic  status  naturalis  to  the  tyrannical  status 
civilis.  The  conclusion  followed  from  the  premises.  In  Rous- 
seau's case,  however,  the  state  of  affairs  was  vastly  different  in 
that  the  natural  and  pre-political  condition  of  mankind  was  re- 
garded as  ideal  and  the  departure  from  it  regrettable.  In  Rous- 
seau's logic,  nature  and  the  State,  liberty  and  law  are  contradic- 
tories; the  good  and  wise  life  has  no  place  for  civilization  and 
culture.  In  spite  of  this  view  or  mood  on  the  part  of  Rousseau, 
he  manages  to  deduce  and  delight  in  a  conception  of  sovereignty 
in  which  the  civil  order  destroys  the  State  of  Nature.  His  political 
premises  should  have  led  him  to  deduce  perfect  anarchy;  instead 
of  this  he  deduced  perfect  sovereignty.  Hobbes  seized  upon  the 
idea  of  absolute  monarchy  by  wholly  relinquishing  that  of  liberty; 
Locke  avoided  both  extremes,  but  Rousseau  tried  to  reconcile 
them.  How  did  he  accomplish  this  ? 

By  means  of  his  idea  of  the  "  general  will  —  volonte  generate" 
not  by  means  of  a  Leviathan.  This  general  will  is  formed  when 
each  individual  puts  all  of  his  personality  and  power  into  a 
common  mass  or,  as  it  were,  fund.  In  giving  himself  up  to  all 


364  THE  POLITICAL  FACTOR 

in  general,  the  individual  gives  himself  up  to  no  one  in  particular. 
Since  each  person  does  this,  each  acquires  over  every  other  person 
what  he  himself  lost  or  its  equivalent.  The  kind  of  contract 
which  safeguards  the  freedom  of  the  individual  is  not  the  political 
one  of  Hobbes,  but  a  social  contract;  and  that  which  it  creates 
is  something  acceptable  to  the  individual's  own  will:  namely,  the 
general  will.  To  the  average  reader  of  Rousseau,  the  general  will 
being  inalienable  and  inerrant,  resembles  the  terrible  Leviathan, 
or  the  Leviathan  duly  domesticated.  However,  in  extenuation 
of  the  paradoxes  involved  in  Rousseau's  idea  of  liberty  and  sover- 
eignty, we  might  suggest  that  his  idea  of  social  contract  is  ex- 
emplified generally  in  the  formation  of  the  United  States,  al- 
though to  this  day  the  idea  of  sovereignty  is  such  as  to  leave  a 
doubt  as  to  whether  it  belongs  to  the  federal  government  or  to 
the  individual  states  comprising  it. 

THE  AMERICAN  CONCEPTION 

The  idea  of  the  State  of  Nature  which  we  have  been  using  as  a 
guide  to  the  later  and  larger  conception  of  politics  persisted 
through  the  Romanticism  of  the  French  and  the  Transcendental- 
ism of  the  Germans  and  became  a  practical  principle  of  political 
revolution  among  the  Americans.  The  doctrine  is  recognizable 
after  the  passing  of  two  centuries  and  with  the  practical  changes 
which  the  Fathers  of  the  Republic  found  it  expedient  to  effect. 
It  appears  in  the  famous  phrase  in  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence wherein  it  is  affirmed  that  "  all  men  are  endowed  by  their 
Creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights."  The  Americans  of  the 
XVIIIth  century  were  still  in  or  had  only  recently  emerged  from 
a  condition  of  nature,  so  that  they  did  not  deem  it  necessary  to 
dilate  upon  the  advantages  of  the  Natural  State.  Likewise,  their 
acquaintance  with  the  American  Indian  had  been  such  that  they 
were  in  no  mood  to  join  Rousseau  in  praising  "the  good  savage." 

However,  the  original  principle  of  their  liberty  was  such  as  to 
suggest  a  state  of  existence  in  which  men  had  enjoyed  such  natural 
freedom  unmolested  by  a  sovereign,  certainly  not  a  foreign  one. 
Their  conception  of  the  Natural  State  of  man  was  that  of  the  pre- 
political  condition  or  one  peculiar  to  the  Colonies  before  the  for- 


THE  POLITICAL  AND  ECONOMIC  365 

mation  of  the  United  States;  not  a  pre-social  condition,  since  the 
social  was  something  they  had  long  been  enjoying.  Furthermore, 
it  must  be  observed  that,  in  using  the  expression  "inalienable 
rights,"  the  American  statesman  indicated  that  in  entering  into  a 
political  compact  he  was  not  relinquishing  his  Natural  Rights 
after  the  manner  of  the  Hobbist  or  even  the  Rousseauan  citizen, 
but  seeking  a  means  for  preserving  them.  This  was  the  expres- 
sion of  American  individualism  and  was  to  the  effect  that  the 
State  was  made  for  man,  not  man  for  the  State.  Such  is  the  op- 
timism of  our  political  theory,  although  it  should  be  observed  that 
Thomas  Paine,  like  St.  Augustine,  took  a  pessimistic  view  of  the 
political  principle.  "  Society,"  said  he, "  is  produced  by  our  wants 
and  government  by  our  wickedness;  the  former  promotes  our 
happiness  positively  by  uniting  our  affections,  the  latter  nega- 
tively by  restraining  our  vices." 

THE  POLITICAL  AND  ECONOMIC 

The  principles  of  politics  that  we  have  been  examining  assumed 
their  most  definite  form  in  the  XVIIIth  century  and  reached 
a  climax  in  the  American  Revolution  of  1776  and  the  French 
Revolution  of  1789.  The  rational  theory  of  the  State  as  some- 
thing formed  by  political  or  social  contract  exemplified  the  ancient 
idea  of  the  consent  of  the  governed.  Speaking  broadly,  we  might 
say  that  this  philosophy  of  rights  worked  well  up  to  the  period 
of  revolution,  but  not  so  well  afterwards.  The  people  of  the 
United  States  secured  their  rights  and  formed  their  government, 
but  only  by  drawing  the  color-line,  for  the  principles  of  rights 
did  not  extend  to  the  red  man  or  the  black,  since  the  Indian  and 
the  African  Negro  were  not  included  within  the  precincts  of  the 
political  State.  In  France,  where  the  Revolution  had  released 
the  nucleus  of  the  French  people,  it  did  not  provide  a  permanent 
organization  of  the  newer  sort.  To  realize  this  we  have  only  to 
consider  the  violent  return  to  Caesarism  that  we  observe  in  the 
career  of  Napoleon.  The  old  ideals  —  the  State  of  Nature,  the 
social  contract,  and  sovereignty  of  the  people — had  made  their 
bow,  played  their  part  and  disappeared  More  practical  ideals 
of  polity  were  to  take  their 


366  THE  POLITICAL  FACTOR 

In  glancing  at  these  post-classic  systems,  If  systems  they  can  be 
called,  we  shall  miss  the  familiar  principles  of  State  peculiar  to 
early  modern  times,  or  the  Enlightenment.  In  place  of  them 
we  find  that  politics  has  been  supplanted  by  political  economy, 
the  idea  of  the  State  by  that  of  government,  and  the  view  of  man 
as  a  "political  animal "  in  a  separate  nation  by  the  general  con- 
ception of  man  as  member  of  a  social  order.  If  this  were  the  place 
for  it,  we  would  discuss  the  political  idea  in  the  utilitarian  form 
given  it  by  Jeremy  Bentham  (1748-1832)  and  John  Austin  (1790- 
1859),  James  Mill  (1773-1836)  and  John  Stuart  Mill  (1806-1873). 
But  this  conception  of  man  and  the  social  order  was  left  stranded 
by  the  Theory  of  Evolution.  This  organic  conception  of  human 
life  has  made  necessary  a  different  conception  of  political  ex- 
istence. 

For  the  most  part,  the  political  conception  has  been  so  identi- 
fied with  the  social,  industrial,  and  economic  that  it  is  practically 
impossible  to  discuss  it  in  the  isolation  it  once  enjoyed.  The  or- 
ganic and  evolutionary  have  taken  the  place  of  the  inorganic 
and  rationalistic.  The  most  important  principle  of  politics  is  that 
of  Karl  Marx  (1818-1883),  and  in  The  Communist  Manifesto 
(1848),  which  he  prepared  with  Friedrich  Engels,  the  most  sig- 
nificant idea  of  government  is  that  in  the  future  the  State  will 
deal  less  and  less  with  the  control  of  persons,  more  and  more 
with  the  administration  of  things;  that  is,  it  will  be  less  political 
than  economic.  The  political  has  to  do,  then,  with  the  production 
and  distribution  of  wealth  whereas  once  it  was  concerned  with 
the  relation  of  person  to  person,  people  to  sovereign.  As  far  as 
people  are  concerned,  it  is  connected  with  the  relation  of  classes, 
primarily  with  the  bourgeoisie  or  commercial  and  proletariat  or 
laboring  classes.  Political  history,  according  to  the  Socialist,  has 
been  the  history  of  class  struggle;  its  climax  will  be  reached  when 
the  proletariat  come  into  power  and  assume  dictatorship.  The 
bourgeoisie,  or  third  estate,  having  taken  the  power  away  from 
feudal  aristocracy,  is  now  dominating  in  the  form  of  tyrannic 
Capital.  Such  capitalism  is  to  be  itself  overthrown  by  com- 
munism. To  the  Socialist,  all  previous  classes  as  well  as  all  dis- 
tinct nationalities  divide  themselves  into  just  two  classes  —  Capi- 
tal and  Labor. 


DICTATORIAL  GOVERNMENT 


DICTATORIAL  AND  DEMOCRATIC  GOVERNMENT 


367 


The  mention  of  communism  is  bound  to  remind  us  of  the  ex- 
periment now  being  tried  in  Russia  in  the  form  of  the  Union  of 
Socialist  Soviet  Republics,  established  July  6,  1923  and  now,  since 
the  death  of  Lenin  (January  21,  1924),  in  the  hands  of  Stalin. 
This  form  of  politico-economic  enterprise  is  now  recognized 
specifically  as  the  Five  Year  Plan,  in  operation  since  1928  but 
adopted  formally  in  May,  1929.  Its  immediate  aim  is  the  sociali- 
zation of  all  agriculture  and  the  expansion  of  industry.  Thus 
far,  the  collectivization  of  industry  has  been  a  success  from  the 
Russian  point  of  view  and  met  with  the  approval  of  the  Commu- 
nist party  which  met  at  its  biennial  congress  in  July,  1930.  In 
contrast  with  Sovietism,  we  find  the  Fascism  of  Italy  which  was 
formed  by  Mussolini  to  suppress  communism  and  restore  order 
in  the  country.  On  October  30, 1922,  Mussolini,  il  duce,  was  made 
premier  of  Italy;  in  1929  he  made  peace  with  the  pope  and  ter- 
minated the  sixty-year-old  conflict  between  State  and  Church, 
and  now  has  practically  all  political  power  in  his  hands.  In  Stalin 
and  Mussolini  we  find  dictators  in  control  of  widely  divergent 
if  not  opposite  types  of  politics;  the  one  socialistic  and  cosmopoli- 
tan, the  other  anti-communistic  and  nationalistic. 

If,  finally,  we  return  to  our  starting  point  in  the  contrasted 
systems  of  Plato  and  Aristode  and  call  them  "  dictatorial "  and 
"  democratic  "  respectively,  we  may  observe  the  exemplification 
of  them  at  this  late  date  in  Russia  and  Italy  on  the  one  side.  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States  on  the  other.  Germany  and  France 
lie  somewhere  in  between.  Sovietism  and  Fascism  differ  on 
specific  points  of  polity,  but  both  exhibit  the  Platonistic  spirit  of 
the  State  over  all,  with  the  necessary  subordination  of  the  indi- 
vidual. Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  keep  the  individual 
and  his  rights  in  the  ascendancy  even  when  they  persist  in  their 
different  types  of  government,  of  a  "  crowned  republic  "  and  an 
uncrowned  one.  The  course  of  politics  in  the  immediate  future 
will  have  to  test  the  respective  merits  of  such  Platonistic  and 
Aristotelian  forms  of  government.  Which  will  gain  that  which 
lies  at  the  foundation  of  the  State — the  consent  of  the  governed? 


CHAPTER  XV 
THE  SOCIAL  CONCEPTION  OF  LIFE 


THE  SOCIAL  AND  POLITICAL 

THE  POLITICAL  FACTOR  IN  MODERN  CIVILIZATION  MERGED,  AS  WE 
saw,  Into  a  more  general  conception  of  life  —  the  social 
one.  Hence  we  turn  from  the  idea  that  man  is  a  "  political 
animal  "  to  the  conception  of  man  as  a  social  spirit.  The  political 
and  the  social  cannot  be  wholly  severed,  but  a  distinction  may 
be  made  between  them.  The  social  is  the  more  comprehensive 
principle,  as  it  is  also  the  more  natural  one;  the  political  is  chiefly 
the  work  of  man,  although  not  in  the  deliberate  form  of  contract. 
We  feel  that  we  are  social  beings  and  that,  apart  from  established 
law,  the  community  has  its  claims  upon  us.  Furthermore,  we  be- 
lieve that  the  civilization  of  the  race  is  its  socialization.  Now,  in 
rationalizing  our  civilization,  as  we  are  doing,  we  have  observed 
the  importance  of  the  political  idea;  later  we  shall  see  that  due 
analysis  of  civilization  includes  industry  and  economics,  art  and 
religion.  At  the  present  point,  we  must  take  cognizance  of  the 
social  view  of  life,  for,  although  the  social  is  coeval  with  mankind, 
the  conscious  idea  of  sociability  is  not  primitive  or  even  ancient; 
it  is  distinctly  modern. 

The  problem  of  man's  relation  to  himself,  his  thought,  was 
taken  up  by  Descartes  (1596-1650)  at  the  beginning  of  modern 
philosophy.  The  parallel  problem  of  man's  relation  to  his  fellow 
was  being  discussed  at  about  the  same  time  by  Hobbes,  who,  as 
we  have  just  seen,  was  such  a  factor  in  modern  political  philoso- 
phy. Both  men  were  egoists,  but  in  different  senses  of  that  term; 
they  proceeded  alike  from  the  isolated,  atomic  self  to  something 
more  composite.  With  Descartes  it  was  nature,  with  Hobbes 
the  State.  Both  assumed  the  reality  and  inviolability  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  then  went  on  to  show  how  this  personal  unit  might 
become  a  part  of  the  exterior  order;  here  the  physical,  there  the 
political.  We  of  today  are  inclined  to  feel  that  our  situation  and 
our  problem  are  the  reverse  of  these,  since  we  find  nature  and 


THE  ANTI-SOCIAL  VIEW  369 

society  as  complex  wholes  given  in  our  experience.  It  is  our 
problem  to  extricate  the  ego  from  the  mass  of  the  natural  and 
social  in  order  that,  in  some  measure,  one  may  live  his  own  life 
and  call  his  soul  his  own.  But  we  cannot  appreciate  the  trans- 
mutation of  social  ideals  between  the  XVIIth  and  XlXth  cen- 
turies until  we  have  come  to  an  understanding  with  the  bold  but 
thoughtless  egoism  of  the  earlier  period. 

THE  ANTI-SOCIAL  VIEW 

We  must  make  a  fresh  beginning  historically  by  referring  to 
Hobbes.  His  story  has  been  often  told  and  we  are  now  familiar 
with  it,  but  we  must  take  into  account  certain  additional  features 
of  his  'Leviathan,  and  observe  its  ethical  significance.  The  misera- 
ble condition  of  man  in  the  State  of  Nature  from  which,  to  end 
the  war  of  all  against  all,  man  formed  the  commonwealth,  was 
due  to  man's  inherent  nature.  According  to  Hobbes,  man  is 
thoroughly  selfish  and  to  his  self-love  adds  self-esteem.  The  idea 
that  man  may  be  social  also  occurred  to  Hobbes,  but  he  dismissed 
it  as  something  alien  to  mankind.  The  social  principle,  he  ob- 
served, is  dominant  among  insects,  which  live  instinctively  and 
automatically  form  a  stereotyped  society;  it  is  not  observable 
among  men,  who  live  according  to  competition  and  place  the 
highest  possible  values  upon  their  personalities.  "  Men  have  no 
pleasure,  but  on  the  contrary  a  great  deale  of  griefe,  in  keeping 
company  where  there  is  no  power  able  to  overawe  them  all.  For 
every  man  looketh  that  his  companion  should  value  him  at  the 
same  rate  he  sets  upon  himselfe." 1 

Nature,  as  Hobbes  had  pointed  out,  "dissociates"  men;  in 
their  disjuncted  condition,  each  seeks  his  own  pleasure.  The  ego- 
ism that  extends  throughout  Hobbes'  work  to  the  exclusion  of 
the  social  reveals  itself  characteristically  in  Hobbes'  conception  of 
laughter.  Aristotle  had  found  the  source  of  mirth  in  the  sudden 
juxtaposition  of  the  incongruous,  and  thus  had  made  it  something 
physical  With  Hobbes,  laughter  has  a  social  origin;  it  arises 
when  one  is  suddenly  elevated  above  his  fellow  and  is  thus  able 
for  the  time  to  feel  superiority.  "Sudden  glory  is  the  passion 

1  Leviathan, 
S.T. — 25 


370         THE  SOCIAL  CONCEPTION  OF  LIFE 

which  makes  those  Grimaces  called  Laughter  and  is  caused  either 
by  some  sudden  act  o£  their  own  that  pleaseth  them  or  by  the 
apprehension  of  some  deformed  thing  in  another  by  comparison 
whereof  they  suddenly  applaud  themselves."2  On  the  other 
hand,  grief  over  another's  sorrow  arises  within  one  when  he 
imagines  that  a  like  calamity  may  befall  one's  self.  Morality  does 
not  spring  from  the  Good,  but  consists  in  utility  only  or  natural 
necessity.  In  the  State  of  Nature,  where  there  is  no  society,  there 
is  no  distinction  between  good  and  bad.  In  this  manner,  Hobbes 
challenged  modern  thought  to  prove  the  existence  of  the  social 
and  moral.  He  aroused  or  brought  into  being  the  Utilitarians 
and  Intuitionists.  How  did  England  receive  Hobbes*  egoism? 

THE  OPPOSITION  TO  EGOISM 

The  British  system  of  morals  was  created  almost  wholly  by 
the  effort  to  correct  the  human  egoism  and  ethical  relativism  of 
Hobbes.  The  Briton  is  at  heart  a  gentleman,  hence  he  cannot 
admit  that  man  is  naturally  brutal  and  selfish.  He  is  just  as  much 
a  free  man  and  cannot  tolerate  the  idea  that  the  difference  between 
virtue  and  vice  depends  upon  the  will  of  the  State.  Nevertheless 
it  was  no  simple  task  to  repudiate  the  principles  that  Hobbes  had 
set  up  with  such  ease  and  confidence;  hence  it  may  be  pointed  out 
that  for  a  century  and  a  half  English  ethics  cast  about  for  the 
obvious  and  then  failed  to  find  it.  The  obvious,  as  we  are  in- 
clined to  believe  today,  is  the  social.  In  our  mind,  this  principle 
provides  automatically  the  solution  of  the  problems  that  troubled 
the  early  modern  mind,  that  have  bothered  moralists  ever  since 
the  days  of  the  Epicureans  and  the  Stoics  — the  adjustment  of 
man  to  mankind,  the  relation  of  man  to  the  moral  law.  Perhaps 
we  should  praise  these  British  moralists  for  their  ethical  efforts  in 
behalf  of  man  before  the  discovery  of  the  social  idea,  just  as  we 
are  inclined  to  applaud  the  muscular  activity  of  man  before  the 
invention  of  the  steam  engine.  Let  us  observe  briefly  how  these 
gentlemanly  moralists  tried  to  redeem  the  reputation  of  man 
after  Hobbes  had  cast  aspersion  upon  it. 

The  problem  at  hand  after  Hobbes  had  interpreted  man  as 

2  Leviathan,  Ch.  VI. 


THE  IDEAL  OF  SYMPATHY 

selfish  was  to  attribute  a  social  nature  to  him.  Now,  the  way  to 
attribute  is  to  attribute.  Hobbes  had  gleaned  a  number  o£  egoistic 
facts  and  had  asserted,  "  Man  is  egoistic."  Two  centuries  later 
Comte  and  his  successors  harvested  an  array  of  social  data  and 
proclaimed,  "  Man  is  social."  Between  the  egoism  of  Hobbes 
and  the  altruism  of  Comte,  we  find  the  most  important  members 
of  the  English  ethical  school  trying  to  change  the  pattern  of  hu- 
man nature  from  a  circle  with  an  individualistic  center  to  an 
ellipse  with  the  selfish  and  sympathetic  as  its  foci.  Indeed,  after 
the  initial  work  of  Comte  and  the  development  of  Darwinism, 
the  gentlemanly  moralists  of  England,  Mill  and  Sidgwick,  were 
still  found  attempting  to  "  prove "  that  man  is  a  benevolent 
being. 

This  work  was  taken  up  originally  by  Richard  Cumberland  ia 
his  De  Legibus  Naturae  (1672),  wherein  the  noble  author  insists 
upon  the  ideal  of  benevolence.  The  trouble  with  Cumberland  as 
an  opponent  of  Hobbes  was  that  he  attacked  the  heavy  cudgel 
of  the  real  with  the  light  sword  of  the  ideal  and  failed  to  lay  the 
Leviathan  low.  Shaftesbury  in  his  Inquiry  Concerning  Virtue 
and  Merit  (1699),  was  somewhat  more  realistic  in  his  conception 
of  human  nature,  so  that  he  was  able  to  approximate  to  the  so- 
cial ideal  so  dominant  today.  Shaftesbury  approaches  our  ideal 
of  the  higher  gregariousness  by  introducing  such  ideas  as  the 
"  species,"  the  "  system  of  animals,"  the  "  animal  order,"  the 
"  Whole,"  and  the  like.  His  aesthetic  intuition  revealed  the  world 
to  him  as  no  "  distracted  universe,"  but  as  a  proportionate  and 
harmonious  system.3  The  moral  ideal  follows  almost  auto- 
matically —  man  should  live  harmoniously,  as  he  may  do  by  ad- 
justing the  selfish  part  of  his  nature  to  the  sympathetic.  The 
result  will  be  harmony  in  society  and  happiness  in  the  heart  of  the 
individual.4 

THE  IDEAL  OP  SYMPATHY 

English  ethics  in  the  XVIIIth  century  indulged  in  enough 
moral  realism  to  effect  the  transition  from  the  brutal  egoism  o£ 
Hobbes  to  what  we  might  call  the  brutal  altruism  of  Darwin.   At 
*  Op.  at.,  Bk.  J.  *  lb.,  Bk.  H, 


372         THE  SOCIAL  CONCEPTION  OF  LIFE 

first  it  was  the  supposed  might  of  the  individual;  this  has 
changed  to  acknowledged  power  of  the  social  order.  The  semi- 
social  conception  of  life  was  developed  by  Hume  and  Adam 
Smith  in  the  form  of  "  sympathy,"  a  sort  of  noblesse  oblige.  Be- 
fore they  developed  their  ethical  systems,  Francis  Hutcheson  in- 
troduced the  more  amiable  but  less  effective  ideal  of  "  disinterested 
affection."  In  his  Inquiry  into  the  Original  of  our  Ideas  of  Beauty 
and  Virtue  (1720),  Hutcheson  developed  the  ideal  of  a  "moral 
sense  "  which  sprang  from  man's  noble  nature  and  dictated  be- 
nevolent affection.  It  was  distinctly  different  from  Butler's  con- 
ception of  a  rational  conscience  with  its  authoritative  sense  of 
approval  and  disapproval.  In  pursuit  of  this  ideal  sense  of  soci- 
ality, Hutcheson  intuits  human  society  as  though  its  members 
past  and  present  made  up  some  happy  English  community  or 
even  some  noble  family.  "  Whence  this  secret  chain  between 
each  person  and  mankind?  How  is  my  interest  connected  with 
the  most  distant  parts  of  it?  And  yet  I  must  admire  actions 
which  are  beneficial  to  them,  and  love  the  author  whence  this 
love,  compassion,  indignation  and  hatred  toward  even  feigned 
characters,  in  the  most  distant  nations  and  ages  according  as 
they  appear  kind,  faithful  and  compassionate  or  of  opposite  dis- 
positions toward  their  imaginary  contemporaries?  If  there  is 
no  moral  sense,  which  makes  rational  actions  appear  beautiful 
or  deformed;  if  all  approbation  be  from  the  interest  of  the  ap- 
prover, *  What's  Hecuba  to  us  or  we  to  Hecuba? ' "  5 

But  the  social  ideal  of  modern  life  was  not  advanced  to  any 
significant  extent  by  such  aesthetical  conceptions  of  the  polite 
mind.  With  Hume,  however,  there  was  more  realism  as  also 
a  historical  sense;  with  Adam  Smith,  a  more  penetrating  psy- 
chology plus  economic  insight.  Both  of  these  moralists  placed 
their  affair  upon  the  idea  of  "  sympathy."  An  egoism  like  that 
of  Hobbes'  could  not  fare  well  in  the  hands  of  a  skeptic  like 
Hume.  Since  he  doubted  the  existence  of  the  self,  he  could  not 
be  dogmatic  about  self-love.  "  So  far  from  thinking  that  men 
have  no  affection  for  anything  beyond  themselves,  I  am  of  the 
opinion  that,  tho'  it  be  rare  to  meet  with  any  one  who  loves  any 
single  person  better  than  himself,  yet  'tis  as  rare  to  meet  with  one 

5  op.  dt.,  Sect,  i. 


THE  IDEAL  OF  SYMPATHY 

in  whom  all  the  kind  affections  taken  together  do  not  overbalance 
all  the  selfish."  6  According  to  Hume,  it  is  not  difficult  to  enter 
into  the  sentiments  of  others,  since  they  resemble  ourselves.  Our 
own  feelings  partake  more  of  our  idea  of  them  than  of  the  feel- 
ings themselves,  hence  it  is  easy  to  enter  into  the  idea  of  the 
feelings  that  other  people  have.  Thus  it  comes  about  that  "  the 
minds  of  men  are  mirrors  to  one  another."  7  In  such  a  conception 
of  social  life  in  the  form  of  sympathy,  Hume  anticipates  Adam 
Smith's  conception  of  the  moral  sense  and  suggests  Darwin's 
psychology  of  conscience.  Yet  Hume  does  not  fail  to  continue 
the  English  sense  of  human  nobility  aroused  by  the  barbaric 
philosophy  of  Hobbes. 

The  contrast  between  the  ethical  and  the  economic  appears  in 
the  philosophy  of  Adam  Smith,  The  two  factors  appear  to  be 
at  variance  with  each  other.  In  1759,  Smith's  Theory  of 
Moral  Sentiments  developed  the  traditional  idea  that  the  basis  of 
both  moral  action  and  ethical  judgment  is  to  be  found  in  the 
sense  of  sympathy.  In  1776,  his  Wealth  of  Nations  placed  the 
science  of  economics  upon  an  egoistic  basis.  There  is  at  least  an 
apparent  conflict  between  the  ethical  and  economic  theories  of 
Adam  Smith,  just  as  there  is  often  a  contrast  between  the  ethical 
and  economic  practices  of  the  modern  business  man.  In  Smith's 
case,  however,  it  may  be  suggested  that  his  ethics  treats  of  things 
as  they  should  be,  while  in  his  economics  he  considers  things  as 
they  are.  The  principle  of  sympathy  on  which  the  ethical  ideal 
is  based  has  three  characteristics  —  it  is  natural,  mutual,  limited. 
The  naturalness  of  sympathy  is  attributed  to  the  fact  that  it  is 
instinctive.  It  is  mutual,  hence  by  means  of  one's  own  feeling 
one  can  appreciate  the  feelings  in  another's  mind.  It  is  limited 
by  its  own  nature,  so  that  one  is  in  the  habit  of  saying,  "  I  am 
sorry,  but  I  cannot  sympathize  with  you."  He  who  in  his  excess 
of  emotion  craves  our  sympathy  "  must  flatten  the  sharpness  of 
its  natural  tone  in  order  to  reduce  it  to  harmony  and  concord 
with  the  emotions  of  those  who  are  about  him." 8  Within  the 
breast  of  each  one  is  an  "  impartial  spectator  "  which  by  means 

6  Treatise  of  Human  Nature,  Bk.  m,  Part  II,  Sect.  II. 

7  /£.,  Bk.  H,  Part  II,  Sect.  V. 

8  Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments,'Paxt  I,  Ch.  IV. 


374         THE  SOCIAL  CONCEPTION  OF  LIFE 

of  sympathy  approves  or  disapproves  of  actions,  those  of  others 
and  finally  of  the  individual  himself. 

THE  SOCIAL  VIEW  OF  MAN 

After  the  XVIIth  and  XVIIIth  centuries  had  groped  about 
for  the  social  ideal,  it  was  discovered  in  the  XlXth  century  by 
Auguste  Comte  (1798-1857).  Previous  thinkers  had  labored  with 
the  Hobbist  delusion  that  man  had  emerged  from  a  natural  to 
a  social  condition  by  some  artificial  means,  as  social  contract  or 
moral  reasoning.  Comte  obviated  the  difficulty  of  all  such 
"  proofs  "  by  assuming  the  thing  to  be  demonstrated  —  the  social 
nature  of  mankind.  He  accepted  this  the  way  he  accepted  the 
subject  matter  of  the  physical  sciences  and  abandoned  the  idea 
that  the  social  State  had  been  adopted  because  of  its  usefulness  or 
moral  value.  "  It  is  evident,"  said  he,  "  that  the  social  state  would 
never  have  existed  if  its  rise  had  depended  upon  the  conviction 
of  its  individual  utility,  because  the  benefit  could  never  have  been 
anticipated  by  individuals  of  any  degree  of  ability,  but  could  only 
manifest  itself  after  the  social  evolution  had  proceeded  up  to  a 
certain  point.  There  are  even  sophists  who  at  this  day  deny  the 
utility  without  being  pronounced  mad;  and  the  spontaneous 
sociability  of  human  nature,  independent  of  all  personal  calcula- 
tion, and  often  in  opposition  to  the  strongest  individual  interests, 
is  admitted,  as  of  course,  by  those  who  have  paid  no  great  atten- 
tion to  the  true  biological  theory  of  our  intellectual  and  moral 
nature."  * 

That  which  had  stood  in  the  way  of  the  social  ideal  for  man- 
kind was  the  vague  conception  of  society  and  the  equally  vivid 
appreciation  of  the  self.  It  is  a  question  whether  Hobbes  in  his 
materialism  or  Mill  in  his  associationism  had  enjoyed  the  right 
to  premise  an  ego  of  any  sort.  Their  speculative  views  were  in 
opposition  to  such  an  ethical  factor.  Comte  avoided  the  false 
anthropology  and  inconsistent  philosophy  of  the  whole  utilitarian 
school.  Instead  of  trying  to  reconcile  the  ego  with  society,  he 
introduced  the  social  ideal  and  let  it  crowd  the  ego  out  of  the 
scene.  If  the  sense  of  selfhood  is  strong  and  the  feeling  of  syn> 

9  Positive  Philosophy,  tr.  Martineau,  Bk.  VI,  Ck  V,  pp,  498-499. 


THE  SOCIAL  VIEW  OF  MAN  375 

pathy  weak,  it  is  difficult  to  reconcile  egoism  with  altruism.  But 
if  the  social  sense  has  instinctive  strength  within  it  while  the 
sense  of  individuality  is  weak  and  vague,  altruism  will  rejoice  in 
an  easy  victory.  So  it  was  in  the  positivist  system  of  Comte.  "  No 
doubt  a  cat  or  any  other  vertebrate  animal,  without  knowing  how 
to  say  '  I,'  is  not  in  the  habit  of  taking  itself  for  another.  More- 
over, it  is  probable  that  among  the  superior  animals  the  sense  of 
personality  is  still  more  marked  than  in  man,  on  account  of  their 
more  isolated  life."10  With  such  a  conception  of  the  self,  so 
vastly  different  from  the  speculative  self  of  Descartes  and  the  self- 
ish ego  of  Hobbes,  it  was  not  difficult  for  Comte  to  establish  the 
social  ideal. 

The  methods  by  which  the  social  principle  has  proceeded  in- 
volved both  the  source  and  the  sanction  of  the  moral  ideal.  The 
source  of  the  moral  principle  is  to  be  found,  it  seems,  in  man's 
social  nature.  This  was  primarily  the  work  of  Darwin  in  the 
Descent  of  Man  ( 1871 ) .  Unlike  Herbert  Spencer,  who  speculated 
about  the  Theory  of  Evolution,  Darwin  did  not  use  his  discoveries 
in  the  realms  of  plant  and  animal  life  for  the  furtherance  of  the 
social  ideal  as  such.  He  was  not  a  sociologist.  Nevertheless,  he 
sanctioned  the  social  interpretation  of  the  moral  life  and  supplied 
us  with  what  purported  to  be  the  evolution  of  conscience.  Dar- 
win did  not  identify  conscience  with  any  sort  of  social  sense,  but 
regarded  it  much  after  the  manner  of  Butler  and  Kant.  He 
himself  summed  it  up  in  "  that  short  but  imperious  word  ought!' 
The  ingredients  of  such  a  conscience  were,  however,  within  the 
domain  of  his  naturalism;  they  were  sociability  and  reflection 
which,  duly  blended,  were  able  to  produce  the  moral  sense.  Man 
has  inherited  his  social  nature  and  much  of  his  reasoning  power 
from  lower  forms  of  animal  life,  but  the  rational  interpretation 
of  his  social  nature  is  something  strictly  human.  The  intellect, 
or  what  Butler's  ethics  called  conscience  or  reflection,  is  the  chief 
factor.  Hence  Darwin  concludes  that  "any  animal  whatever, 
endowed  with  well-marked  social  instincts,  would  inevitably 
acquire  a  moral  sense  or  conscience  as  soon  as  its  intellectual 
powers  had  become  as  well  developed,  or  nearly  as  well  de- 
veloped, as  in  man."11 

10  /£.,  £>.  385.  "  Descent  of  Man,  Ch.  m. 


376         THE  SOCIAL  CONCEPTION  OF  LIFE 

MODERN  SOCIOLOGY 

The  social  idea  has  been  so  definitely  formulated  by  Social 
Science  that  we  need  say  little  about  it;  the  subject  is  treated  sys- 
tematically in  the  science  of  sociology.  However,  it  may  not  be 
amiss  to  examine  this  form  of  study  for  the  sake  of  inquiring 
whether  sociology  is  a  science,  as  also  whether  it  gives  a  just  ac- 
count of  human  life  as  this  is  found  in  society.  According  to  the 
traditions  of  Comte  and  his  school,  modern  sociology  is  not  un- 
like mediaeval  theology  in  that  it  aspires  to  be  the  "  queen  of  the 
sciences."  According  to  Lester  Ward,  "  Sociology  is  an  advanced 
study,  the  last  and  latest  in  the  entire  curriculum.  It  involves  high 
powers  of  generalization  and,  what  is  more,  it  absolutely  requires 
a  broad  basis  of  induction.  ...  To  understand  the  laws  of  so- 
ciety the  mind  must  be  in  possession  of  a  large  body  of  knowl- 
edge. This  knowledge  should  not  be  picked  up  here  and  there 
at  random,  but  should  be  instilled  in  a  methodical  way.  It  should 
be  fed  to  the  mind  with  an  intelligent  purpose  in  view,  and  that 
purpose  should  be  the  preparation  of  the  mind  for  ultimately 
entering  the  last  and  most  difficult  as  well  as  the  most  important 
field  of  human  thought,  that  of  sociology." 12  Such  a  statement 
is  likely  to  impress  the  student  of  science  unfavorably;  the  tone 
of  it,  at  once  pretentious  and  apologetic,  is  quite  different  from 
that  of  a  work  on  physics  or  psychology. 

In  such  a  treatment  of  sociology  as  we  find  in  Ward,  cosmology 
and  biology,  anthropology  and  psychology  are  referred  to  as  the 
"  simpler  sciences  "  that  constitute  "  a  part  of  the  data  of  soci- 
ology," to  which  must  be  added  mathematics,  astronomy,  physics, 
and  chemistry.13  This  method  of  arranging  the  sciences  in 
such  a  way  as  to  have  them  serve  the  needs  of  sociology  is  another 
thing  that  is  likely  to  make  an  unfavorable  impression  upon  the 
student.  He  realizes  that  no  one  science  stands  alone,  but  must 
enter  into  relations  with  a  similar  one;  astronomy  demands 
mathematics,  physics  requires  astronomy,  chemistry  necessitates 
physics,  biology  needs  chemistry,  and  psychology,  biology.  Such 
interrelations  are  to  be  expected  and  have  been  found  fruitful, 
but  apart  from  the  fact  that  mathematics  runs  through  all  the 

12  Outlines  of  Sociology,  Ch,  I,  pp.  17-18.  1S  J£.,pp,  118-119. 


SOCIAL  SCIENCE 

sciences  as  a  principle  of  measurement,  there  is  no  reason  for 
placing  any  one  of  them  in  a  superior  position,  for  the  idea  of 
rank  in  a  hierarchy  is  quite  out  of  place.  If  we  cannot  crown  the 
science  of  sociology,  can  we  admit  it  into  the  royal  family  of 
science? 

Now,  the  question  whether  sociology  is  a  science  or  some  other 
form  of  study  may  be  set  in  a  fairly  clear  light  by  distinguishing 
between  the  things  that  are  historical  and  those  that  are  not;  the 
factor  of  time  here  becomes  important.  But  what  does  this  mean 
in  the  present  case?  It  means  that  when  we  are  dealing  with 
numbers  and  geometrical  figures  we  are  dealing  with  things 
that  are  wholly  unaffected  by  time,  so  that  the  question  "  when?  " 
as  also  that  of  "  where?  "  cannot  come  up  for  discussion.  Mathe- 
matics is  simply  out  of  time.  Pretty  much  the  same  thing  may 
be  said  of  the  things  that  are  considered  in  physics  and  chemistry; 
the  ball  that  rolls  down  an  inclined  plane  at  a  certain  rate  of 
speed  and  the  atom  of  hydrogen  that  combines  with  an  atom  of 
nitrogen  in  a  certain  proportion  represent  transactions  with  which 
time  has  nothing  to  do.  We  ourselves  may  experiment  today  with 
the  ball  or  atom,  yet  we  realize  that  the  time-factor  that  enters 
into  our  private  experiment  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  general 
principles  of  gravity  or  chemical  combination.  The  ball  is  al- 
ways attracted  toward  the  earth;  the  atoms  always  combine. 
Even  with  biology  and  psychology,  the  same  timelessness  pre- 
vails. Hence  we  may  assert  that  the  animal  possesses  the  faculty 
of  locomotion,  the  muscles  store  up  glycogen,  the  eye  operates  in 
concert  with  the  occipital  lobe  of  the  brain,  and  the  sense-organs 
register  their  specific  qualities.  These  are  given  data  of  the 
psycho-physical  organism  in  general  and  are,  as  it  were,  impervi- 
ous to  historical  changes.  To  think  of  these  functions  as  varying 
would  be  almost  impossible. 

SOCIAL  SCIENCE 

In  the  case  of  sociology,  the  element  of  change  seems  to  enter 
in  most  decidedly,  so  that  we  are  bound  to  view  this  "  science  " 
as  a  historical  one.  The  questions  that  come  up  in  this  science 
are  such  that  they  have  to  be  referred  to  some  historical  period 


378         THE  SOCIAL  CONCEPTION  OF  LIFE 

and  due  allowance  made  for  that  fact.  When,  therefore,  we 
speak  of  sociology  as  being  historical  in  character,  we  mean  that 
its  subject  matter  progresses  in  such  a  way  as  to  keep  creating  the 
relatively  new.  Just  as  much  do  we  mean  that,  in  distinction 
from  physical  and  chemical,  biological  and  psychological  trans- 
actions, the  phenomena  of  social  science  cannot  be  repeated. 
They  are  parts  of  the  general  course  of  evolution  and  must  be 
understood  in  a  historical  sense.  There  are,  of  course,  persistent 
tendencies  in  all  social  life,  as  industry  and  art,  language  and  re- 
ligion, but  the  content  of  these  keeps  undergoing  change.  With 
a  natural  science  we  may  cut  down  through  the  material  and 
secure  a  typical  cross-section,  but  with  a  social  science  we  are 
compelled  to  take  into  account  the  direction  and  movement  of  the 
material  as  this  is  carried  along  on  the  stream  of  historical  Be- 
coming. We  may  fashion  a  system  of  social  science  and  try  to 
call  it  "  social  physics,"  but  what  we  fashion  is  only  a  raft  floating 
on  the  surface  of  the  stream. 

When  we  are  dealing  with  natural  sciences,  we  have  an  ab- 
stract mind  dealing  with  detachable  data;  it  is,  again,  the  .case  of 
two  bodies  in  the  gravitational  relation  or  two  atoms  in  chemical 
combination.  We  isolate  these  data,  study  them  in  their  inde- 
pendence, and  draw  exact  conclusions.  No  matter  how  complex 
the  world,  such  simplification  is  always  possible.  But  with  so- 
cial science  this  is  not  the  case;  we  cannot  isolate  our  data,  make 
out  measurements,  and  ascribe  our  causes.  It  is  for  this  reason 
that  the  use  of  inductive  and  deductive  reasoning  can  be  only  gen- 
eral, more  suggestive  than  conclusive.  In  fact,  it  is  not  so  much 
scientific  faculty  of  reason  as  it  is  the  practical  function  of  judg- 
ment that  is  involved.  It  is,  as  Cohen  points  out,  the  Aristo- 
telian view  "  that  while  physical  science  depends  on  theoretical 
reason  (nous),  practical  social  science  involves  more  sound  judg- 
ment (phronesis)"'14'  Nevertheless  the  social  thinker  is  still 
under  the  impression  that  his  field  of  investigation  may  be  made 
into  a  science  analogous  to  the  sciences  of  biology  and  physics. 
At  any  rate,  the  social  idea  has  become  the  subject  of  study,  so 
that  the  only  question  is  one  concerning  the  kind  of  study  its  data 
and  methods  will  permit. 

14  Reason  and  Nature,  p.  367. 


THE  SOCIALIZATION  OF  LIFE 


THE  SOCIALIZATION  OF  LIFE 

The  social  concept,,  brought  about  as  it  was  by  ethical  theory 
and  social  science,  is  no  longer  an  academic  matter;  it  is  a  living 
situation,  a  practical  state  of  affairs.  We  live  in  an  age  that  is 
both  scientific  and  social,  hence  we  think  scientifically  and  work 
socially.  In  the  ancient  period  of  occidental  life,  man  was  domi- 
nated by  the  State;  in  the  mediaeval  age,  he  was  subordinated  to 
the  Church;  in  modern  times,  he  has  been  subsumed  under  the 
idea  of  Society.  At  the  inception  of  the  modern  period  there  was 
an  interregnum  of  individualism  experienced  in  early  Protestant- 
ism, expressed  philosophically  by  Descartes'  cogito  ergo  sum,  and 
experienced  egoistically  in  the  ethical  system  of  Hobbes.  But,  as 
we  have  seen,  the  social  idea  gained  the  mastery  of  the  situation, 
so  that  the  individualism  of  the  last  hundred  years  has  been  no 
more  than  a  protest  against  social  control.  We  observe  it  chiefly 
in  literary  movements  like  Romanticism,  Decadence,  and  Sym- 
bolism, which  have  endeavored  to  exalt  the  idea  of  aesthetic 
personality.  The  leading  idea  of  the  present  age  when  it  deals 
with  practical  problems  is  the  social  one,  just  as  its  guiding  star 
in  theoretical  considerations  is  the  scientific  one.  Scientism  and 
sociality  are  the  poles  of  the  modern  sphere.  We  must  consider 
the  social  idea  in  both  its  theoretical  and  practical  forms  and  ob- 
serve how  we  live  in  a  period  of  both  external  and  internal 
sociality. 

The  external  socialization  of  the  modern  man  has  not  come  by 
thinking,  but  by  acting;  not  by  ethics,  but  through  economics* 
This  appears  in  the  modern  socialization  of  work.  In  accord- 
ance with  the  modern  method  of  industry,  the  wills  of  men 
that  had  once  worked  in  independence  are  now  intertwining  in 
the  complex  activities  of  a  "plant."  In  the  treatment  of  this 
problem,  as  it  is  taken  up  by  the  professional  socialist,  the  so- 
cialization as  well  as  the  mechanization  of  labor  comes  in  for 
both  approval  and  disapproval.  The  socialist  bows  before  the  ne- 
cessity of  socialized  industry  as  one  observes  it  in  a  factory  and 
admits  that  modern  wealth  can  be  produced  in  no  other  way. 
His  criticism  concerns  itself  with  tie  distribution  of  the  wealth 
thus  produced  and  he  does  pot  fail  to  observe  where  wealth  is 


38o         THE  SOCIAL  CONCEPTION  OF  LIFE 

produced  socially  it  is  distributed  individualistically.  Now  there 
can  be  little  doubt  that  the  next  problem  for  the  modern  mind 
to  take  up  is  that  of  the  distribution  of  the  wealth  which  the  mod- 
ern has  learned  to  produce.  The  physical  question  has  been 
answered  and  nature  has  responded  to  the  call  for  wealth.  It  is 
the  economic  or  ethical  question  that  now  calls  out  for  solution. 
In  order  to  save  the  individual  from  socialism,  it  is  necessary 
to  distinguish  between  two  kinds  of  individualism;  one  is  a  doc- 
trine to  the  effect  that  a  man  is  what  he  has,  the  other  man  is 
what  he  is.  The  one  is  the  individual  of  commerce,  the  other  the 
individual  of  culture.  "  You  must  confess,"  says  the  Communist 
Manifesto,  "  that  by  c  individual 5  you  mean  no  other  person  than 
the  Bourgeois,  than  the  middle-class  owner  of  property.  This 
person  must  indeed  be  swept  out  of  the  way  and  made  impossible. 
Communism  deprives  no  man  of  the  power  to  appropriate  the 
products  of  society;  all  that  it  does  is  to  deprive  him  of  the  power 
to  subjugate  the  labor  of  others  by  means  of  such  appropria- 
tion." 15  Socialism,  which  seems  thus  to  interpret  the  "  products 
of  society"  as  something  both  material  and  spiritual,  further 
declares  itself  in  favor  of  culture.  "  Just  as  to  the  Bourgeois  the 
disappearance  of  class-property  is  the  disappearance  of  production 
itself,  so  the  disappearance  of  class-culture  is  to  him  the  disappear- 
ance of  all  culture." 16  But  even  these  admissions  do  not  save 
us  from  the  apprehensive  feeling  that  the  external  socialization  of 
life  is  bound  to  militate  against  the  individual  and  his  culture,  the 
building  up  of  his  own  inner  life. 

THE  SOCIALIZATION  OF  WORK 

The  external  socialization  of  the  race  shows  itself  directly  in 
mechanized  industry,  and  when  the  worker  lays  hold  of  the  ma- 
chine, the  machine  does  not  fail  to  lay  hold  of  him.  The  result 
of  this  modern  conflict  has  been  in  favor  of  the  machine;  Goliath 
has  won  the  victory  over  David.  The  socialist  protests  that  the 
individual  worker  owns  no  tools  and  does  not  participate  in  the 
profits  of  his  labor.  The  thinker  who  is  not  committed  to  either 
the  socialist  or  the  capitalist  theory  is  more  likely  to  protest  that 
16  Op.  tit.,  authorized  trans.,  pp.  37-38,  16  lb.t  p.  38, 


THE  SOCIALIZATION  OF  WORK  38t 

the  individual  worker  does  not  possess  culture  and  is  in  no  po- 
sition to  develop  character.  The  conflict  between  the  socialist  and 
the  capitalist  will  have  to  be  fought  out  along  party  lines,  but 
also  upon  the  basis  of  economic  and  ethical  principles.  Just  now 
the  quarrel  is  little  more  than  one  between  the  feelings  of  greed 
and  envy.  The  student  of  the  modern  situation  can  do  little  more 
than  observe  that,  no  matter  how  the  conflict  may  turn  out,  the 
present  situation  is  one  in  which  the  social  idea  is  dominant. 
Hence  it  is  with  the  social  concept  that  our  thought  must  deal. 

With  the  drab  fact  of  industrialism  before  us,  we  are  beginning 
to  realize  that  the  ethical  call  to  altruism  and  the  religious  ideal 
of  benevolence  are  hollow  things,  just  as  the  social  life  of  man- 
kind is  little  more  than  a  shell  of  existence.  When  we  exhort  the 
individual  to  engage  in  social  service,  we  should  realize  that  the 
majority  of  the  population  is  thus  indeed  engaged,  not  from 
moral  choice,  but  by  physical  necessity.  Enforced  "  altruism  "  is 
the  order  of  the  day  in  which  wealth  is  produced  by  large  groups 
of  men  operating  mechanically  and  socially  in  modern  enterprise. 
The  change  that  has  come  over  human  life  since  the  beginning 
of  the  Industrial  Revolution  has  been  one  from  relative  isolation 
to  a  condition  of  impersonal  socialization  in  which  one  can  hardly 
call  his  soul  his  own.  Hence  the  problem  of  life,  far  from  con- 
sisting in  the  duty  to  participate  in  the  work  of  the  world,  is  to 
find  some  means  whereby  the  individual  may  deliver  himself 
from  the  socio-industrial  order  that  now  envelops  and  enchains 
him. 

The  picture,  as  it  engraves  itself  upon  our  minds,  is  far  from 
pleasing  and  the  realism  of  it  seems  inescapable.  Just  as  the 
naturalization  of  modern  thought  tended  to  interpret  the  mind 
in  terms  of  mechanism,  so  the  socialization  of  life  tends  to  change 
our  existence  and  work  into  a  machine.  What  once  was  a  theory 
is  now  working  out  in  practice.  According  to  Descartes,  man  is 
a  conscious  automaton;  in  the  mind  of  Helvetius  (1715-1771), 
man  is  a  machine.  These  were  theoretical  conclusions  drawn 
from  the  general  principle  of  mechanism,  but  these  are  now  be- 
coming practical  consequences  derived  from  the  application  of 
mechanics  to  steam  and  electrical  engineering.  Industry  has 
made  man  automatic  since  he  must  imitate  his  machine  and  work 


382         THE  SOCIAL  CONCEPTION  OF  LIFE 

as  a  unit  in  an  assemblage  of  fellow  workmen.  The  physical  and 
the  social  have  thus  become  the  millstones  of  industry.  From 
this  physico-social  organization  there  has  come  a  great  economic 
good  and  the  total  outcome  of  modern  effort  may  effect  an 
equally  great  ethical  good,  but  at  the  present  time  the  economic 
is  seen  outstripping  the  ethical. 

SOCIALIZED  LABOR 

The  actual  effects  of  modern  industrialism  may  be  appreciated 
when  we  recall  what  conservative  capitalism  keeps  saying  about 
radical  socialism.  The  capitalistic  critic  of  socialism  warns  us 
that  the  socialization  of  the  distribution  as  well  as  of  the  pro- 
duction of  wealth  would  lead  to  a  dire  condition  in  which  indi- 
vidual initiative  would  be  destroyed,  private  property  abolished, 
and  workers  living  in  barracks.  Now,  it  might  be  that  socialism, 
once  it  had  built  up  its  system  upon  the  ruins  of  capitalism,  would 
land  us  in  such  a  distressing  condition.  If  so,  individualism 
would  oppose  the  new  system  as  it  now  opposes  the  old.  But, 
in  contemplating  the  actual  condition  of  our  socialized  population, 
do  we  not  find  that  industrial  life  has  already  lodged  them,  a 
large  portion  of  the  population,  in  just  such  a  condition  ?  Viewed 
from  the  standpoint  of  living  and  life-loving  individualism,  the 
modern  way  of  life  seems  to  be  becoming  more  and  more  in- 
tolerable. 

The  social  ideal,  which  had  its  conception  in  ethics  and  its  birth 
in  economics,  represents  a  view  of  life  which  prevails  by  sheer 
force  of  necessity;  we  can  admit  it  as  a  fact  much  better  than  we 
can  accept  it  as  an  ideal.  For  those  who  still  cling  to  the  ideal  of 
an  interior,  self-directed  life  for  man,  and  who  can  see  no  way  out 
of  the  present  situation,  the  most  obvious  attitude  is  that  of  pes- 
simism. Indeed  we  are  confronted  by  a  state  of  affairs  and  a  state 
of  mind  not  wholly  unlike  that  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Then  those 
who  despaired  of  the  world  abandoned  it  and  sought  consolation 
in  the  ascetic  ideal.  At  the  present  time  we  find  a  large  por- 
tion of  the  population  despairing  of  their  modern  world,  but, 
having  no  spiritual  havens  at  hand,  they  relapse  into  general 
pessimism. 


THE  SOCIALIZATION  OF  MORALITY 


THE  SOCIALIZATION  OF  MORALITY 


383 


In  addition  to  the  socialization  of  life  in  the  form  of  actual  ex- 
istence, modern  thought  is  now  confronted  with  the  life-ideal  in 
the  same  social  form.  Morality  is  sociality  —  that  is  the  last  word 
in  ethics.  The  ancient  ideal  of  virtue  in  itself  and  the  modern 
notion  of  an  imperative  duty  dictated  by  conscience  have  given 
way  before  a  socialized  conception  of  the  moral  life.  After  the 
social  idea  had  surrounded  the  modern,  it  invaded  him;  it  was 
first  his  enveloping  atmosphere,  but  now  has  become  the  air  he 
breathes.  The  social  principle,  instead  of  being  an  ideal  toward 
which  one  should  strive  by  means  of  benevolence,  has  become  a 
factor  which  realizes  itself  automatically.  We  can  understand 
how  a  pioneer  thinker  like  Hobbes,  starting  with  the  chaos  inci- 
dent upon  a  supposed  State  of  Nature  for  mankind,  strove  to 
prove  the  existence  of  the  moral  and  social  by  means  of  a  social 
contract.  But,  after  Comte  had  socialized  all  human  exist- 
ence, it  is  difficult  to  appreciate  the  effort  of  Mill  when  he  at- 
tempted to  give  a  "  proof  "  of  utilitarianism.  Still  less  simple  is 
it  to  understand  why,  at  the  end  of  the  XlXth  century,  a  tradi- 
tional thinker  like  Sidgwick  should  find  it  necessary  to  resort  to 
an  "  intuition  of  rational  benevolence "  as  the  basis  of  ethical 
theory.  It  is  difficult  for  us  to  understand  such  philosophical 
procedure  when  the  social  ideal,  reinforced  by  the  method  of 
evolution,  took  charge  of  human  life  and  reduced  all  its  ideals 
to  social  norms. 

In  addition  to  the  academic  work  of  the  professional  social 
scientist  we  must  observe  the  operation  of  the  social  ideal  in  the 
literature  of  the  XlXth  century.  Having  done  this,  we  may  be 
led  to  believe  that  the  dominance  of  the  social  has  been  brought 
about  by  the  aesthetical  as  well  as  the  scientific  writer.  The  poem, 
play,  and  novel  of  the  last  one  hundred  years  have  often  emerged 
from  a  social  setting,  hence  we  must  encroach  upon  the  history  of 
literature  to  enhance  our  conception  of  the  social  conception  of 
life.  The  polite  literature  of  the  period  under  discussion  will  be 
found  somewhat  indifferent  to  the  aesthetic  ideal  of  "  art  for  art's 
sake  "  and  just  as  fully  influenced  by  a  democratic  spirit  inspiring 
political  reform  and  social  improvement. 


384         THE  SOCIAL  CONCEPTION  OF  LIFE 

THE  SOCIAL  IDEAL  IN  LITERATURE 

The  social  motif  in  English  literature  does  not  date  as  far  back 
as  the  days  of  Richardson  and  Fielding,  but  does  find  a  begin- 
ning in  the  XVIIIth  century  in  The  Adventures  of  Caleb  Wil- 
liams (1794)?  in  which  its  author,  William  Godwin,  illustrates 
the  political  views  he  had  previously  advanced  in  his  Enquiry 
Concerning  Political  Justice.  We  find  none  of  this  political  expres- 
sionism in  Scott,  but  it  does  appear  in  Shelley,  whose  Prometheus 
Unbound  (1818)  and  The  Cenci  (1819)  call  out  for  some  sort 
of  political  reform,  or  release  from  authority.  Byron's  political 
activity  was  chiefly  of  the  emotional  and  explosive  sort.  He  did 
attempt  something  direct  and  practical  when,  in  1822,  with 
Shelley  and  Leigh  Hunt  he  started  a  journal  called  The  Liberal, 
but  this  was  a  brief  and  ill-starred  venture.  His  participation  with 
the  Greeks  in  their  revolt  against  the  Turks  was  another  indica- 
tion of  his  political  bent,  but  for  the  most  part  his  poetic  efforts 
were  romantic,  his  political  activity  a  romantic  revolt.  Poetic 
effort  was  more  effective  in  the  case  of  Elizabeth  Browning 
(1806-1861)  with  The  Cry  of  the  Children  (1844),  a  poem  protest- 
ing against  child  labor,  as  also  with  her  Poems  Before  Congress 
(1860). 

The  novel  with  its  greater  range  of  plot,  character,  and  descrip- 
tion was  a  more  fruitful  field  for  the  socially  minded  Victorians. 
Most  eminent  among  the  social  novelists  was  Dickens  (1812- 
1870) .  From  the  mass  of  Dickensenia  we  may  extract  certain  of 
these  well-known  works,  as  David  Copperfield,  which  exposed 
evils  of  the  debtor's  prison,  of  child  labor,  and  of  certain  practices 
of  the  English  boarding  schools;  Oliver  Twist  with  its  "  Fagin- 
ism,"  or  the  underworld  practice  of  training  youths  to  be  crimi- 
nals; and  other  works  depicting  the  social  character  of  city  life. 
Earlier  than  the  appearance  of  these  classics,  Bulwer-Lyttori  wrote 
Paul  Clifford  (1830),  a  novel  of  crime  and  punishment,  which 
dealt  with  the  subject  of  prison  reform.  Mary  Barton,  by  Mrs. 
Gaskell  (1810-1865),  took  up  the  cause  of  the  poor  in  the  indus- 
trial centers  of  England.  In  somewhat  the  grand  manner  of 
Dickens,  George  Eliot  (1819-1880)  revealed  an  interest  in  middle- 
class  life  and  a  desire  to  emancipate  the  individual  from  its  re- 


THE  SOCIAL  IDEAL  IN  LITERATURE        385 

strictions.  Maggie  Tulliver,  in  The  Mill  on  the  Floss,  is  an  ex- 
ample of  the  self-assertive  woman  who  follows  her  own  desires 
rather  than  domestic  direction.  George  Eliot's  male  characters, 
Adam  Bede,  Silas  Morner,  Felix  Holt,  and  the  like,  are  more 
individual  persons  than  protagonists  of  any  social  or  political 
movement. 

The  essayists  of  this  period  were  in  a  better  position  to  discuss 
economics  and  political  reform;  in  this  field,  Ruskin  and  William 
Morris  were  the  most  thoroughgoing.  The  ethico-economic  ap- 
pears ever  so  often  in  Ruskin's  works*  but  assumes  its  most  direct 
form  in  Fors  Clavigera  (1871-1878),  a  series  of  monthly  letters  to 
workingmen.  Ruskin  himself  seems  to  have  had  feudal,  or 
Gothic,  ideals;  he  interested  himself  in  St.  George's  Guild,  which 
sought  to  stimulate  the  development  of  agricultural  and  industrial 
colonies.  Like  Ruskin,  William  Morris  (1834-1896)  was  inter- 
ested in  the  fusion  of  art  and  industry  and  went  so  far  as  to  found 
an  organization,  Morris  and  Company,  for  the  manufacture  of 
furniture  such  as  the  "  Morris  chair,"  wall-paper,  stained  glass, 
tiles,  and  the  like.  Morris  revolted  from  the  modern  factory  sys- 
tem that  had  grown  up  with  the  Industrial  Revolution  and  sought 
to  save  in  the  best  way  he  could  the  personality  of  the  individual 
worker. 

Earlier  than  these  Victorians  was  Thomas  Carlyle  (1795-1881), 
who  was  too  much  influenced  by  German  thought,  feudalism,  and 
hero-worship  to  participate  whole-heartedly  in  the  social  move- 
ment of  the  time.  In  considering  the  same,  as  we  have  done  so 
briefly,  we  observe  that  Scott,  Keats,  and  Browning  held  aloof 
from  the  social  questions  of  the  XlXth  century  and  pursued 
literary  art  for  its  own  sake  or  with  general  reference  to  nature 
and  humanity.  They  seem  to  have  been  uninfluenced  by  the 
social  movements  of  the  day.  Tennyson  touched  the  socio- 
literary  movement  at  certain  points.  In  The  Princess,  he  protests 
against  the  higher  education  of  women;  in  LocJfsley  Hall  —  Sixty 
Years  After  (1886),  he  bewailed  the  condition  of  England  that 
commercialism  had  brought  about.  One  is  thus  led  to  wonder 
which  is  the  better  type  of  literary  art  —  that  which  uses  itself 
as  a  means  to  an  end,  like  the  ethical,  social,  economic,  or  that 
which  considers  itself  an  end  in  itself. 

S.T.— 26 


THE  SOCIAL  CONCEPTION  OF  LIFE 


THE  THESIS-DRAMA 

la  addition  to  the  Anglican  writers  just  mentioned,  some  notice 
must  be  taken  of  certain  Continental  authors  who  raised  the  social 
question.  Among  the  French,  we  might  mention  Balzac  and 
Flaubert,  Zola  and  de  Maupassant,  but  these  greater  novelists 
were  inclined  to  take  the  social  situation  for  granted  and  as  re- 
quiring only  realistic  description.  With  Victor  Hugo  (1802- 
1885)  the  case  is  different.  In  Les  Miserable*,  the  character  of 
Jean  Valjean  is  a  study  of  the  criminal  and  his  relation  to  society. 
In  Alexandre  Dumas  fits  (1824-1895)  we  have  a  fine  example  of 
the  thesis-drama  exemplified,  particularly  in  La  Question  d'  Ar- 
gent and  La  Femme  de  Claude.  Dumas  fils  was  preceded  by 
Augier,  whose  main  thesis-drama  is  Les  Effrontes,  and  followed 
by  Curel  (1854-1928)  and  Brieux  (1858-  ).  The  social  drama 
with  unusual  psychological  penetration  has  been  represented  by 
Paul  Hervieu  (1857-1915)  and  Octave  Mirbeau  (1850-1917). 
Anatole  France  (1844-1924),  at  the  time  of  his  death  the  foremost 
literary  figure  in  France,  can  hardly  be  classified  as  a  social 
writer,  yet  his  attacks  on  established  religion  and  government 
and  his  interest  in  the  Dreyfus  affair  and  the  World  War  tend 
to  associate  him  with  something  more  than  polite  literature. 

Among  German  authors,  Sudermann  (1857-1928)  and  Haupt- 
mann  (1862-  )  are  associated  with  the  problem  of  individual- 
ism, or  the  anti-social  question.  Yet  such  a  play  as  Sudermann's 
Die  Heimat  or  Ehre  involves  the  social  situation,  which  serves 
as  a  background  for  the  egoistic  revolt.  In  Die  Weber  Haupt- 
mann  is  directly  social,  and  social  considerations  enter  into  his 
Rosa  Bernd}  but  his  plays  induce  one  to  think  of  the  individual 
rather  than  the  social  condition  in  which  he  finds  himself.  The 
Russian  novel,  which  will  be  taken  up  in  some  detail  when  we 
discuss  Types  of  National  Culture,  is  decidedly  political;  the 
characters  in  it  often  seem  as  spokesmen  for  the  radical  authors 
who  have  no  other  way  of  venting  their  views.  This  was  true 
of  Gogol  (1809-1852)  in  his  Dead  Souls  and  The  Inspector,  but 
all  the  more  so  with  Dostoievsky  (1821-1881)  and  Turgenev 
(1818-1883).  The  mere  mention  of  Crime  and  Punishment  by 
Dostoievsky  and  Fathers  and  Sons  by  Turgenev  shows  this.  In 


INDIVIDUALISM  387 

both  these  writers.  Nihilism,  a  term  coined  in  Fathers  and  Sons, 
is  the  leading  political  idea.  Among  the  Scandinavians,  Bjorn- 
son's  social  play,  A  Bankruptcy,  is  o£  interest  in  the  way  it  helped 
turn  Ibsen  toward  the  social  drama.  Strindberg's  plays  The 
Father  and  Countess  Julia  may  be  listed  under  thesis-dramas, 
but  are  just  as  thoroughly  autobiographical  in  character.  Ibsen's 
plays,  especially  the  social  dramas  of  his  second  period,  move  in 
a  social  atmosphere,  but  are  best  discussed  in  connection  with 
the  individualistic  reaction  to  the  social  situation. 

Contemporary  writers  on  social  problems  are  widely  read  and 
need  but  the  brief  notice  we  give  them.  In  England  we  find  a 
most  commanding  literary  figure  in  Galsworthy,  a  modern  epic 
in  his  Forsyte  Saga.  His  plays,  such  as  The  Silver  Box,  Strife, 
and  Justice,  discover  the  dramatic  in  social  inequality.  Bernard 
Shaw  is  more  than  well  known  for  the  brilliant  but  perhaps 
jaunty  way  in  which  he  has  taken  up  contemporary  problems  and 
made  comedies  out  of  what  is  sometimes  tragic  material.  In 
America,  Main  Street  and  Babbitt  by  Sinclair  Lewis  and  An 
American  Tragedy  by  Theodore  Dreiser  present  social  problems, 
but  do  not  so  fully  indicate  the  solution  of  them. 

INDIVIDUALISM  —  OPPOSITION  TO  THE  SOCIAL 

The  opposition  to  the  social  conception  of  modern  life  has  been 
taken  up  by  modern  individualism.  Indeed  individualism  was 
armed  for  the  conflict  before  the  social  ideal  had  received  definite 
formulation.  The  individualistic  movement  of  the  XTXth  cen- 
tury was  carried  on  successively  by  Romanticism,  Decadence,  and 
Symbolism.  Its  particular  methods  were  those  of  aestheticisin, 
immoralism,  and  dilettantism.  Its  exponents  were  poets,  musi- 
cians, and  critics.  Nowhere  do  we  observe  a  direct  argument  be- 
tween an  artist  and  a  sociologist,  but  almost  everywhere  through- 
out the  XlXth  century  do  we  note  the  painful  contrast  between 
the  drab  social  and  the  highly-colored  individualistic  points  of 
view.  The  analysis  and  classification  of  these  individualists,  to 
say  nothing  of  their  divergence  from  orthodox  sociology,  is  by 
no  means  simple.  But  we  should  be  unjust  to  the  remarkable 
century  we  have  left  behind  us  if  w£  did  not  attempt  an  examina- 


THE  SOCIAL  CONCEPTION  OF  LIFE 

tion  of  the  competitive  view  of  life  —  the  individualistic  one.  A 
future  century  writing  our  history  will  be  able  to  do  it  much 
better,  but  we  will  attempt  the  task  along  the  vague  lines  of 
aesthetic  Romanticism,  decadent  Immoralism,  and  symbolistic 
Dilettantism. 

The  romantic  school  is  famous  in  literature  for  the  manner  in 
which,  breaking  with  classical  tradition,  it  pressed  backward  into 
the  past  of  mediaevalism  and  urged  forward  in  the  form  of  a 
nameless  striving.  It  is  not  so  fully  recognized  as  a  vigorous 
movement  in  the  direction  of  individualism.  It  was  so  recog- 
nized in  Germany,  particularly  by  Friedrich  Schlegel,  the  founder 
of  the  movement  there.  His  thought  was  vague,  the  expression 
of  it  fragmentary  and  inchoate  but  it  did  receive  a  kind  of  formu- 
lation in  his  romantic  doctrine  of  irony.  This  Ironie  amounts  to 
subjectivism  and  was  supposed  to  have  been  sanctioned  by  such 
solid  thinkers  as  Kant  and  Fichte.  What  it  meant,  however,  was 
so  much  dreaming  rather  than  thinking;  or,  as  Novalis  expressed 
it,  "  The  dream  becomes  a  world,  the  world  becomes  a  dream." 
Schlegel,  in  his  Letters  to  Ludnde,  thinks  of  this  delicious  young 
woman  as  living  in  a  world  of  her  own  aesthetic  creation  where 
she  experiences  the  "  enjoyment  of  a  beautiful  Present."  17  The 
romantic  ego  generally,  fascinated  by  its  own  inner  life,  can  do 
no  more  than  indulge  "  a  restless  striving  after  the  New,  the 
Piquant  and  Striking."18  After  the  French  Revolution  had 
done  its  deadly  work  and  the  Napoleonic  reorganization  had  not 
helped  the  cause  of  the  German  Fatherland,  it  may  have  been 
natural  for  a  poetic  German  to  seek  refuge  in  such  a  dream- 
world. 

The  eudaemonistic  tone  of  Romanticism  continued  after  the 
movement  itself  had  ended  historically  and  officially.  We  note 
it  in  Wagner's  Ring  of  the  Nibelungen,  wherein  Wotan  is  rep- 
resented as  failing  chiefly  because  of  his  incapacity  for  joyousness 
and  freedom  just  as  his  son,  Siegmund,  cannot  carry  on  his 
father's  noble  work  because  he  also  is  a  prey  to  sorrow.  When 
he  should  have  been  called  Joyful,  he  was  forced  to  style  himself 
Woeful.19  Even  in  such  a  grim  dramatist  as  Ibsen,  with  his 

17  Lucinde,  ed.  Reclam,  p.  61.  19  The  Vdtyries,  Act  I. 

18  ]ugend  Schriften,  ed.  Minor,  Bd.  I,  p.  95. 


THE  PERSONAL  PROTEST  389 

constant  command  to  be  one's  self  and  live  one's  own  life,  the 
specific  method  of  self-existence  and  self-expression  is  the  roman- 
tic one  of  joy.  It  was  by  "  the  happiness  of  all  through  all "  that 
Rosmer  and  Rebecca,  in  Rosmersholm,  hoped  to  ennoble  man- 
kind. 

THE  PERSONAL  PROTEST 

Even  in  the  naturalistic  drama  of  Sudermann  and  Hauptmann, 
the  romantic  idea  of  selfhood  through  self-enjoyment  still  per- 
sisted. In  The  Sunken  Bell,  Heinrich  the  bell-founder  fails  in 
his  noble  work  because,  instead  of  working  in  joy,  he  labored  in 
"  nameless  agony  "  and  was  not  the  master  the  community  es- 
teemed him  simply  because  he  was  not  happy.  When,  later,  the 
beautiful  Rautendelein  pours  her  love  into  him  like  wine  in  his 
veins,  he  was  able  to  say,  "  I  am  both  happy  and  a  master." 20 
In  Sudermann's  Dame  Care,  the  dutiful  and  obedient  Paul 
Meyerhoeffer  fails  to  succeed  because  he  lacks  the  joy  of  life  and 
is  able  to  attain  to  selfhood  and  thus  cast  off  the  spell  of  melan- 
choly only  when,  through  crime,  he  experiences  a  joyful  sense  of 
human  existence.  In  Magda,  the  pastor  becomes  a  mouthpiece 
for  Sudermann's  eudaemonistic  egoism  when,  addressing  the 
bold  and  talented  heroine,  he  says,  "As  you  stood  before  me 
yesterday  in  your  freshness,  your  natural  strength,  your — your 
greatness,  I  said  to  myself,  *  That  is  what  you  might  have  been 
if  at  the  right  moment  joy  had  entered  into  your  life.' "  21  Now, 
these  are  only  the  most  obvious  examples  of  the  romantic  doctrine 
that  one  is  one's  self  in  one's  joys. 

The  decadent  movement  which  followed  Romanticism  was  no 
less  fruitful  of  individualism.  Decadence  was  more  aesthetical 
than  natural  and  sought  the  idea  of  selfhood  in  extraordinary 
states  of  mind  rather  than  in  purely  enjoyable  ones.  Poe  ex- 
pressed the  decadent  idea  in  its  aesthetic  form  when  he  declared 
that  "  just  as  the  intellect  concerns  itself  with  truth,  so  taste  in- 
forms us  of  the  beautiful,  while  the  moral  sense  informs  us  of 
duty."  22  Baudelaire  emphasized  the  individualistic  form  of  De- 
cadence when  he  laid  down  the  principles  of  the  cult  du  moi  and 

20  Op.  cit.,  Act  III.         a  Off.  cit.t  Act  HI.       22  The  Poetic  Principle,  in  loc. 


THE  SOCIAL  CONCEPTION  OF  LIFE 

distinguished  the  decadent  method  from  the  romantic  one  by 
placing  emphasis  upon  sorrow  rather  than  joy.  Many  of  the 
poems  in  Flowers  of  Evil  are  intolerable  except  from  the  stand- 
point of  poetic  technique,  but  they  have  a  suggestive  value  about 
them  in  that  they  show  with  what  difficulty  one  can  extricate  him- 
self from  the  social  order  with  its  idea  of  an  average  life.  The 
romance  of  the  decadent  movement  was  exemplified  in  J.  K. 
Huysmans,  especially  in  his  ideal  of  the  solo  life  lived,  for  a  time, 
by  the  hero  in  that  fantastic  tale  Against  the  Grain. 

A  more  serious  strain  of  XlXth-century  individualism  is  to  be 
found  in  its  theoretical  doctrine  of  Immoralism.  This  does  not 
mean  immorality,  since  the  ideal  of  Immoralism  is  more  to 
transcend  than  to  transgress  the  moral  law.  Friedrich  Schlegel, 
the  Romanticist,  expressed  it  boldly  when  he  said,  "  The  first  rule 
of  the  ethical  is  opposition  to  the  legal."  23  Our  own  Emerson 
kept  putting  the  intrepid  ideal  in  epigrammatic  form,  as,  "  Every 
actual  State  is  corrupt;  good  men  must  not  obey  the  laws  too 
well." 24  In  his  antinomianism,  or  hypernomianism  as  he  called 
it,  he  insisted  that  "  Good  and  bad  are  but  names  very  readily 
transferable  to  this  or  that;  the  only  right  is  that  which  is  after 
my  constitution,  the  only  wrong  what  is  against  it."  25  The  pious 
Emerson  went  even  so  far  as  to  say,  "  There  is  no  man  who  is 
not  at  some  time  indebted  to  his  vices,  as  no  plant  that  is  not 
fed  on  manures."  26  Under  pressure,  he  was  willing  to  regard 
himself  as  "  The  Devil's  Child." 27 

NIHILISM 

In  the  form  of  the  novel,  the  doctrine  of  Immoralism  was  rep- 
resented most  strikingly  by  the  Russian  Turgenev  and  Dostoiev- 
sky, although  the  idea  had  been  used  earlier  by  Stendhal-Beyle  in 
The  Red  and  the  Elac\  and  The  Chartreuse  of  Parma.  Tur- 
genev introduced  the  term  and  used  the  idea  of  "  Nihilism  "  to 
express  contempt  for  political  and  every  other  form  of  authority. 

23  "  Ideen,"  Jugend  Schrijten,  ed.  Minor,  p.  60. 

24  Politics,  in  loc. 

25  Self  Reliance,  in  loc. 

26  Considerations  by  the  Way,  tn  loc. 

27  Self  Reliance,  in  loc.  ,      ,     . 


NIHILISM 

The  supreme  motive  of  his  hero  was  "  I  reject/*  Dostoievsky  was 
more  violent.  His  hero  knows  no  law,  but  proceeds  according 
to  the  individualistic  principle  that  the  cultured  man  has  the  right 
to  commit  any  sort  of  crime;  but  instead  of  creating  the  impres- 
sion of  the  cultured  man,  the  hero  seems  to  resemble  the  pre- 
historic specimens  from  which  we  are  descended.  This  appears 
in  Raskolnikow,  the  hero  in  Crime  and  Punishment,  in  Rogozhin 
in  The  Idiot,  and  among  the  Brothers  Karamazov,  preeminently 
Dmitri  and  Smerdyakoff.  In  a  philosophical  manner,  Nietzsche 
emphasizes  and  in  a  way  enhances  the  immoralistic  ideal  in  the 
Schopenhauerian  form  of  "  The  Will  to  Power."  With  all  such 
ImtnoralistSj  the  categorical  imperative  is  the  opposite  of  the 
social  rule  of  tenderness;  it  is  that  of  strength  and  hardness. 

On  the  XlXth-century  stage,  the  immoralistic  character  ap- 
peared most  strikingly  in  the  plays  of  Ibsen.  This  character  is 
usually  feminine.  We  observe  her  in  The  Doll's  House,  where 
Nora  Helmer  concludes  that  a  woman's  first  duty  is  toward  her- 
self and  personally  intends  to  find  out  which  is  right,  society  or 
herself.  We  hear  this  immordiste  speak  in  the  words  of  Mrs. 
Alving,  who  asserts  that  all  morality  is  "  machine-sewn  and  un- 
ravels the  moment  you  untie  a  single  knot."  Hilda  Wangel,  in 
Master  Builder,  is  another  emancipated  woman,  who  calls  herself 
a  "  light-haired  little  devil "  and  wants  her  hero,  who  seems  to  be 
suffering  from  a  "  sickly  conscience,"  to  have  the  "  conscience  of 
a  viking  "  and  the  "  ideals  of  a  ruffian."  Sudermann's  stage,  by 
no  means  independent  of  Ibsen's,  was  expressive  of  a  similar 
antinomianism  as,  for  example,  in  Magda,  wherein  the  heroine, 
as  if  in  imitation  of  Eve  in  Eden,  asserts,  "  We  must  sin  if  we 
wish  to  grow — sin  and  then  grow  greater  than  our  sin." 

The  individualism  that  accompanied  the  social  science  of  the 
XlXth  century  did  not  stop  with  aestheticism  and  Immoralism; 
it  sought  to  emancipate  the  human  ego  at  the  cost  of  irrationalism. 
In  so  doing,  it  made  use  of  scholastic  nominalism  whereby  it  at- 
tempted to  oppose  the  individual  to  the  social  order.  We  observe 
such  logic  in  Emerson  and  in  Max  Stirner.  Emerson  advises  us 
to  resist  the  generalization  that  puts  us  in  the  position  of  subordi- 
nation to  an  idea  like  that  of  the  State.  The  function  of  the  State 
is  purely  pedagogical;  hence  he  says,  "  To  educate  the  wise  man, 


392        THE  SOCIAL  CONCEPTION  OF  LIFE 

the  State  appears;  and,  with  the  appearance  of  the  wise  man,  the 
State  expires."  Stirner  was  still  more  irrational  and  goes  so  far 
in  his  egoism  as  to  answer  the  question  of  Pontius  Pilate  by  saying, 
"  I  am  truth/'  and  "  I  raise  myself  above  truths  and  their  power; 
as  I  am  supersensual,  so  I  am  supertrue." 2S  If  these  intrepid 
individualists  had  before  them  the  idea  of  the  social  order  that 
confronts  us,  would  they  have  been  less  emphatic  in  their  nega- 
tions? But  unfortunately  for  the  individualistic  movement,  it 
had  only  poets,  dramatists,  and  essayists  to  uphold  the  cause,  not 
philosophers  like  Descartes  and  Kant. 

Such  protests  against  the  excessive  socialization  of  human  life 
provoke  the  question  whether  the  social  concept,  so  dominant  in 
the  thought  of  the  day,  is  adequate.  Sociality,  as  we  may  call  it, 
seems  to  give  satisfaction  to  the  contemporary  mind  to  the  same 
degree  that  classic  Formalism,  mediaeval  Scholasticism,  and  mod- 
ern Rationalism  satisfied  the  spiritual  demands  of  the  eras  in 
which  they  appeared.  The  amount  of  sociological  material  at 
hand  in  the  way  of  data  and  the  methods  available  also  are  im- 
pressive, hence  it  is  no  wonder  that  members  of  the  leisure  pro- 
fessions, who  are  not  in  direct  contact  with  life,  accept  the  social 
category  as  supreme.  The  extended  view  of  life  made  possible 
by  history,  anthropology,  and  archaeology  and  the  detailed  con- 
ception of  life  revealed  by  our  encyclopedic  knowledge  tempt 
one  to  believe  that  the  idea  of  the  social  is  the  most  enlightening 
one  available.  Art,  morality,  philosophy,  and  religion  seem  too 
formal  and  narrow  to  cover  such  a  wide  range  of  life.  As  far 
as  the  quantity  of  life  is  concerned,  the  social  idea  is  able  to 
represent  contemporary  civilization  about  as  it  exists.  But  it  is 
a  question  whether  the  inward  quality  of  life,  or  life's  value,  can 
be  presented  in  a  social  form. 

THE  INADEQUACY  OF  THE  SOCIAL 

The  idea  of  civilization  that  we  have  been  following  prohibits 

us  from  giving  immediate  and  unqualified  sanction  to  the  social 

ideal  as  the  supreme  expression  of  the  Good.      After  all,  it  is 

the  Good  that  the  nations  of  the  world  have  sought  even  when 

28  The  Ego  and  his  Own,  tr.  Byington,  p.  463. 


THE  INADEQUACY  OF  THE  SOCIAL        393 

they  have  not  recognized  It  in  this  massive  form.  Chinese  civiliza- 
tion sought  the  Good  in  the  simple  form  of  domestic  virtue  and 
made  its  adherents  members  of  a  household.  Hebrew  civilization 
sought  goodness  in  the  more  devout  manner  of  obedience  to  the 
Divine  Will.  In  India  it  was  the  quest  of  the  Good  in  a  negative 
manner  by  the  renunciation  of  earth  and  the  desire  for  life.  The 
Greeks  sought  it  consciously  in  connection  with  a  philosophy 
which  exalted  reason  and  tried  to  establish  a  rational  republic  of 
enlightened  minds.  The  Christian  Good  was  the  Kingdom  of 
God  on  earth,  an  idea  which  later  became  incorporated  in  a 
visible  Church.  The  modern  sought  the  Good  in  both  a  broad 
rationalism  and  a  narrow  nationalism  and  is  now  continuing  the 
quest  in  an  industrial  civilization  wherein  the  Good  is  material 
benefit  and  the  good  man  an  efficient  worker. 

The  social  conception  of  life  has  assumed  the  form  of  glorified 
gregariousness;  it  is  the  result  of  increased  population,  socialized 
labor,  growth  of  cities;  it  has  been  furthered  by  the  evolutionary 
conception  of  life,  in  which  the  idea  of  species  predominates  over 
that  of  the  individual.  The  social  idea  is  by  no  means  the  only 
one  the  world  has  known  and  is  not  necessarily  the  one  that 
should  be  exalted  at  the  present  time.  Still  less  is  it  possible  to 
assert  that  it  is  the  best  possible  conception  of  human  life.  It  is 
open  to  theoretical  criticism  on  the  grounds  that  it  does  not  afford 
the  materials  or  lend  itself  to  the  principles  of  science.  Sociology 
is  not  a  science  in  the  sense  of  physics  and  chemistry,  biology  and 
psychology.  Still  less  is  it  to  be  considered  the  completion  of 
these.  It  is  rather  a  detailed  description  of  the  milieu  in  which 
these  sciences  are  elaborated. 

On  the  practical  side,  it  is  a  question  whether  the  social  ideal 
is  an  adequate  realization  of  the  Good.  On  the  surface,  it  seems 
to  be  in  that  it  tends  to  express  a  common  consciousness  of  human 
existence,  fellow  feeling,  and  cooperation.  Beneath  the  surface, 
however,  it  assumes  a  different  form.  In  the  character  of  indus- 
trialism, the  social  principle  places  the  individual  in  the  position 
of  forced  altruism,  since  his  mite  of  labor  is  taken  to  make  up 
the  conglomerated  product  of  wealth,  which  assumes  to  be  the 
Good.  In  the  character  of  militarism,  the  same  social  morality 
conscripts  the  individual  and  makes  him  fight  for  a  politico- 


394        THE  SOCIAL  CONCEPTION  OF  LIFE 

social  principle  which  he  does  not  understand  and  of  which  he 
is  barely  conscious.  It  is  only  by  means  of  vigorous  propaganda 
that  his  mind  is  at  all  illuminated  and  his  heart  inflamed  by  the 
cause  for  which  he  is  expected  to  fight.  "  The  c  social  conscience ' 
may  enforce  rules  of  conduct  which  are  in  reality  anti-social.  It 
may,  as  it  did  in  the  Classical  culture,  relegate  masses  of  man- 
kind to  permanent  slavery.  It  may,  as  it  does  still  in  the  Indian 
culture,  divide  caste  from  caste;  it  may,  as  it  has  so  recently  done 
in  our  own  culture,  force  men  to  share  in  a  disastrous  and 
suicidal  war."  28 

*&  Hoyland,  History  as  Direction,  p.  77. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
THE  ECONOMIC  VIEW  OF  CIVILIZATION 


How  ECONOMICS  AROSE 

THE  ECONOMIC  QUESTION  OF  THE  DAY  OR  THE  WORLD'S  BUSI- 
ness  Is  so  complicated  that  we  are  inclined  to  forget  that 
at  heart  it  is  a  simple  matter.  The  instinct  to  acquire  and 
save  is  observable  in  the  life  of  primitive  man  and  is  not  absent 
from  the  life  of  the  animal,  as  the  squirrel.  "  Getting  and  spend- 
ing "  has  long  since  been  a  common  adventure  of  the  race  and 
has  now  become  the  all-important  consideration;  it  reveals  itself 
in  the  busy  world,  in  the  easeful  retreat,  if  not  in  the  most  holy 
cloister.  The  love  of  money  may  be  the  root  of  all  kinds 
of  evil  and  the  mercantilism  of  our  civilization  may  seem  to 
threaten  us  with  materialism,  yet  we  cannot  dismiss  the  economic 
factor  in  life  with  a  word  or  wave  business  away  with  an  ideal, 
We  must  understand  the  economic  principle,  how  the  idea  of 
property  arose,  and  what  is  to  be  done  about  wealth  today. 
This  is  economics,  the  "science  of  wealth/*  or  the  study  of 
"getting  and  spending." 

Originally  the  term  "economics,"  derived  from  the  Greek 
oif(ps,  house,  and  nemo,  manage,  meant  household  management. 
Xenophon  (430-360  B.C.),  who  wrote  our  oldest  treatise  on  the 
subject  under  the  tide  Economics,  discussed  the  management  of  a 
simple  rural  household  in  which  the  activity  that  furnished  the 
income  coincided  with  the  household  in  which  this  was  utilized1 
In  modern  times,  however,  the  economic  activity  is  so  widely 
separated  from  the  simple  household  that  when  such  private 
economics  is  discussed  it  is  in  the  special  form  of  "home  eco- 
nomics," quite  different  from  the  larger  field"  of  "business  eco- 
nomics." Obviously,  the  general  term  economics  comprehends 
both:  (i)  the  ordering  of  the  economic  affairs  of  the  household, 
and  (2)  the  planning  and  management  of  business  undertakings. 
In  addition,  it  recognizes  the  fact  that  the  problem  of  income 

1  Qeconamicus,  tr.  Holdea  (*$95>;  Graux  and  Jacob  (1886). 
395 


396    THE  ECONOMIC  VIEW  OF  CIVILIZATION 

and  expenditure  is  a  serious  question  for  the  public  as  a  whole  as 
well  as  for  the  private  citizen.  And  so  it  is  also  concerned  with 
public  "getting  and  spending,"  with  (i)  political  economy,  or 
the  income  and  expenditure  of  the  State,  commonly  called  pub- 
lic finance;  and  with  (2)  social  economy,  or  the  income  and 
expenditure  of  the  people  as  a  whole,  commonly  called  social 
economics.  Broadly  speaking,  then,  economics  may  be  defined 
as  the  science  which  is  concerned  with  the  communal  problems 
of  wealth-getting  and  wealth-using  activities.  It  involves  the 
study  of  how  men  produce  the  things  they  need,  how  they  divide 
them,  exchange  them,  and  use  them,  and  how  these  activities 
affect  the  welfare  of  the  community. 

While  economics  is  commonly  called  a  science,  any  acceptance 
of  this  idea  must  involve  certain  suggestions  of  tentativeness.    In 
the  first  place,  it  must  be  remembered  that  economics  is  a  social 
science  and  not  an  exact  or  biological  science.    Truth  or  fact  in 
economics  is  relative,  whereas  in  the  exact  sciences,  and  to  a 
less  extent  in  the  biological,  it  is  fixed  and  absolute.   In  the  social 
sciences,  few  principles  can  be  considered  immutable  or  eternal. 
Economic  behavior  is  constantly  changing  and  consequendy 
economic  generalizations  need  to  be  qualified  and  limited  to 
the  culture  or  time  to  which  they  apply.    Again,  in  the  sense  of 
a  widely  accepted  body  of  independent  and  systematically  co- 
ordinated doctrines,  economics  is  a  science  which  is  at  the  moment 
in  a  state  of  considerable  flux.    Over  the  whole  economic  field, 
professional  economists  are  turning  traditional  economic  as- 
sumptions into  problems  for  investigation.    These  scholars  and 
teachers  no  longer  deem  sufficient  mere  simplicity  and  logical 
coherence  in  economic  theory;   they  demand  that   economic 
theory  be  submitted  to  the  inexorable  test  of  its  relevance  to 
objective  reality.    Finally,  it  is  impossible  to  delineate  the  eco- 
nomic field  because  the  professional  economists  hold  such  widely 
divergent  ideas  as  to  the  purpose,  scope,  and  method  of  economics. 
As  a  body  of  knowledge,  economics  is  distinguished  more  by  the 
particular  interests  which  have  influenced  the  inquiries  of  econo- 
mists, by  the  particular  questions  which  they  have  tried  to  an- 
swer, and  by  their  methods  of  attack  than  by  the  peculiarities 
or  the  characteristic  nature  of  its  subject  matter. 


MONEY-MAKING 

The  typical  economic  order  of  our  present  so-called  western 
civilization  and  of  most  preceding  civilizations  is  a  business  or 
money  economy.  The  outstanding  feature  of  an  economic  order 
which  may  be  called  a  business  economy  Is  the  fact  that  economic 
activities  are  carried  on  mainly  by  making  and  spending  money. 
A  business  economy  does  not  develop  in  a  geographical  or  politi- 
cal locality  until  most  of  the  material  activities  of  that  locality 
take  the  form  of  making  and  spending  money.  When  men, 
instead  of  making  goods  which  their  families  need,  make  money, 
and  with  their  money-incomes  buy  for  their  own  use  goods  made 
by  other  hands,  then  dawns  a  business  economy. 

MONEY-MAKING 

Of  course,  the  mere  appearance  and  use  of  money  as  a  con- 
venient and  widely  accepted  tool  of  exchange  is  not  the  most 
significant  consideration,  although  a  necessary  one,  in  designat- 
ing an  economic  order  as  a  business  or  money  economy.  The 
paramount  matter  is  the  institutional  organization  of  production, 
distribution,  and  consumption  for  the  people  as  a  whole  upon 
the  basis  of  money-making  and  money-spending.  Money  oc- 
cupies the  central  position  in  a  business  economy  because  it  is 
the  medium  in  terms  of  which  economic  motives  express  them- 
selves. In  a  business  economy  the  material  comfort  or  misery 
of  a  family,  for  example,  depends  more  upon  its  ability  to  com- 
mand an  adequate  money-income  and  upon  its  pecuniary  thrift 
than  upon  its  efficiency  in  making  useful  goods  and  its  skill  in 
husbanding  supplies.2  To  the  State,  money-making  is  important 
chiefly  because  of  its  influence  upon  efficiency  in  production.  In 
a  business  economy  natural  resources  are  seldom  developed,  me- 
chanical equipment  is  seldom  utilized,  workmanlike  skill  is  sel- 
dom exercised,  and  scientific  discoveries  are  not  applied  unless 
the  opportunity  for  money  profit  is  available  to  those  who  can 
direct  and  supervise  production.3 

The  chronological  history  of  business  or  money  economy  harks 

2  Mitchell,  Business  Cycles,  National  Bureau  of  Economic  Research,  Inc.,  New 

York  (1927)5  P-  63- 
s  Ib.,  pp.  65-66. 


398    THE  ECONOMIC  VIEW  OF  CIVILIZATION 

back  through  the  ages  and  into  the  haze  that  hides  the  begin- 
ning of  humanity.  In  the  far-off,  dim  stretches  of  time,  men 
began  to  take  their  faltering  first  steps  toward  the  use  of  money. 
Conjecture  has  it  that  man  first  began  to  exchange  gifts  and 
then  to  barter  for  the  sake  of  goods.  An  animal  fur  may  have 
been  the  first  article  ever  bartered.  A  weapon  for  hunting,  per- 
haps a  stone  club,  may  have  been  the  next.  Thus  the  modern 
fur  dealer  and  sporting-goods  merchant  may  perhaps  lay  claim 
to  the  greatest  antiquity  in  "  trade  "  as  distinguished  from  "  busi- 
ness." However  that  may  be,  it  is  certain  that  we  cannot  go 
back  to  the  time  when  men  did  not  barter  —  trade  goods  for 
goods.  Amber,  found  only  in  the  Baltic,  was  common  in  the 
earliest  days  of  ancient  Greece.  And  epochs  before  that,  goods 
moved  about  the  so-called  pre-historic  world  in  astounding  fash- 
ion. Expert  judges  believe  that  certain  stone  axes,  discovered  in 
France  along  with  other  relics  of  primitive  man,  are  made  of  a 
kind  of  jade  found  only  in  far-off  Asia. 

Obviously,  barter  begins  with  the  exchange  of  superfluous 
goods.  A  man  with  a  weapon  to  spare,  say  a  tomahawk,  barters 
it  for  a  bundle  of  cord  for  tying  up  the  hair.  Later,  as  life  be- 
comes settled,  the  separation  of  employments  or  the  so-called 
"  division  of  labor  "  begins.  The  man  who  is  particularly  skilled 
in  making  weapons  finds  that  his  products  are  in  demand  by 
others  and  gives  more  and  more  time  to  that  in  which  he  excels. 
He  discovers  that  he  can  build  up  a  surplus  of  weapons  and  bar- 
ter that  surplus  for  his  living  necessities.  Then,  in  all  probability, 
the  concept  of  ownership  begins  to  take  more  definite  form. 
Then,  too,  begin  experimental  efforts  to  express  values  in  a 
common  denominator  and  to  use  some  commodity  as  money. 

Anything,  of  course,  can  be  money  that  will  do  the  money- 
work,  and  curious  assortments  of  things  have  been  so  used  at 
one  time  or  another  —  shells,  iron  ingots,  blocks  of  salt,  cubes  of 
pressed  tea,  sheep,  bullets,  and  so  on.  Generally,  the  natural 
products  of  a  community  are  first  used  as  money  units.  But 
commodity  units  are  inconvenient.  In  the  use  of  commodity 
units  there  is,  of  course,  the  difficulty  of  "  coincidence  "  of  wants, 
that  important  drawback  to  barter  —  each  party  having  a  thing 
to  dispose  of,  but  neither  being  able  to  provide  what  the  other 


GREEK  MERCHANTS  AND  PHILOSOPHERS    399 

wants.  Then  there  is  the  difficulty  of  defining  quantity  and 
quality.  No  one  sheep,  no  one  slave  is  exactly  the  same  as  an- 
other. Commodity  units  are  not  conveniently  homogeneous. 
Metallic  money,  whether  coined  or  not,  because  of  its  convenience, 
inevitably  makes  its  appearance. 

At  the  dawn  of  history,  certainly,  coined  money  was  in  use. 
Abraham  paid  for  the  cave  and  field  of  Machpelah  with  "  four 
hundred  shekels  of  silver,  current  money  with  the  merchants  " 
—  money  coined  of  the  metal  that  formed  the  standard  money  of 
England  until  1816.  The  most  generally  accepted  guess  seems 
to  be  that  the  invention  of  money  coinage  —  pieces  of  precious 
metal  stamped  and  purporting  to  be  of  a  certain  weight  —  took 
place  in  western  Asia  Minor,  Lydia,  about  600  B.C.  Coined 
money  may  have  been  used  in  Babylonia  before  that  time,  but  in 
all  likelihood  early  currency  was  confined  to  metal  ingots  that 
required  weighing  at  each  transaction.  Gold  coins  were  struck 
by  the  Phoenicians  about  330  B.C.  and  were  thereafter  carried 
and  popularized  by  these  hardy  seafarers  throughout  the  Medi- 
terranean world.  The  use  of  money  and  its  influence  upon  the 
organization  of  economic  activities  developed  rapidly  in  Phoe- 
nicia, Carthage,  and  Greece. 

GREEK  MERCHANTS  AND  PHILOSOPHERS 

The  Greeks  were  not  primarily  an  industrial  people.  Never- 
theless they  developed  the  manufacturing  of  articles  of  fine  aes- 
thetic craftsmanship,  they  built  up  export  industries,  and  they 
carried  on  an  extensive  foreign  trade.  "Table  merchants,"  so 
called  because  they  carried  on  their  money-changing  and  money- 
testing  at  a  table,  became  bankers,  made  advances  of  silver  to 
farming  peasants  on  the  security  of  the  debtor's  land,  and  shared 
in  the  profits  of  trading  ventures  by  lending  money  on  "bot- 
tomry," on  the  security  of  a  given  vessel  or  cargo,  for  the  voyage 
out  or  back  or  both.  As  early  as  600  B.C.  there  existed  an  ever- 
increasing  group  of  wealthy  capitalists,  private  capital  was  em- 
ployed in  every  direction,  and  the  principle  of  joint-stock  asso- 
ciation was  apparently  well  understood. 

The  two  greatest  Greek  philosophers,  Plato  and  Aristotle,  were 


40o    THE  ECONOMIC  VIEW  OF  CIVILIZATION 

only  incidentally  concerned  with  economic  inquiry.4  The  Gre- 
cian philosophy  was  so  bound  up  with  the  problem  o£  the  "  good 
life "  that  it  found  small  place  for  an  examination  of  economic 
or  industrial  impulses.  Economic  activities  were  accepted  as  nec- 
essary but  were  considered  scarcely  to  warrant  a  philosopher's  at- 
tention. Labor  was  grudgingly  respected  as  the  pursuit  of  in- 
ferior men,  while  trade  was  largely  left  to  the  despised  aliens 
and  freedmen.  Aristotle's  theories  taught  that  leisure  was  the 
"  mother  of  culture  "  and  as  a  consequence  the  citizen  who  lived 
in  idleness  was  often  held  in  high  regard.  In  the  Republic  and 
in  the  Laws,  Plato  described  an  ideal  State  where  private  prop- 
erty was  strictly  limited,  where  interest-taking  was  forbidden,  and 
where  a  simple  household  economy  was  highly  praised.5  While 
Aristode  attacked  the  Republic  emphatically,  his  own  economic 
conception  of  an  attainable  State  does  not  differ  fundamentally 
from  that  of  Plato.  In  the  Politics,  Aristode  also  condemns 
money-making  for  its  own  sake,  as  well  as  any  interest-taking 
whatever  and  most  of  the  simple  phenomena  of  money  and  ex- 
change.6 

Both  philosophers  considered  economic  problems  from  a  juristic 
or  ethical  point  of  view;  both  judged  and  rated  economic  activi- 
ties good  or  bad  by  their  relationship  to  some  "rational"  or 
"  natural "  view  of  the  general  structure  of  society.  So  it  is  that 
Aristotle's  strong  conclusion  to  the  effect  that  trading  for  gain, 
as  contrasted  with  trading  to  exchange  goods,  is  "  unnatural " 
was  merely  the  result  of  his  theories  on  the  nature  of  the  family 
and  the  State.  His  interests  were  concerned  with  ethics  and 
philosophy,  and  he  developed  no  practical  plans  for  the  economics 
of  production  or  commerce. 

4  It  must  not  be  thought  that  a  study  of  the  Greek  ideas  Is  fruitless  in  an  eco- 
nomic-background sense.    The  beginnings  of  many  economic  theories  can  be  found 
in  Greek  literature  and  philosophy.    For  example,  Aristophanes,  in  his  popular 
play  The  Frogs  (405  B.C.),  makes  reference  to  that  monetary  principle  now  known 
as  Gresham's  law  —  the  principle  which  states  that  bad  money  always  drives  out 
good  money* 

5  The  best  translation  of  Plato  is  probably  that  of  B.  Jowett,  3rd  ed.,  revised, 
Oxford  (1888). 

6  "Politics,  tr.  Jowett,  Oxford  (1885).    The  more  striking  passages  from  Aris- 
totle which  deal  with  economics  may  be  found  in  Monroe,  Early  'Economic 
Thought  (1924). 


ROMAN  ECONOMICS  AND  LAWS 


ROMAN  ECONOMICS  AND  LAWS 


401 


The  Romans,  like  the  Greeks,  were  not  primarily  an  industrial 
or  a  commercial  people.  Nevertheless,  many  of  the  elements  of 
a  business  economy  prevailed.  Money-changing,  money-lending, 
speculation.,  and  simple  banking  became  common.  Associations 
of  capitalists  were  carefully  organized  as  partnerships  or  joint- 
stock  companies  managed  on  behalf  of  the  shareholders  by 
participes.  The  Forum,  with  its  basilicae,  was  crowded  with 
publicani  and  negotiatores  haggling  and  closing  speculative  trans- 
actions in  an  immense  stock  exchange.  In  spite  of  the  prevalence 
of  slavery,  many  men  worked  for  wages  in  the  production  of 
staple  goods  on  a  large  scale  and  for  a  wide  market.  In  the 
later  Empire,  fine  shops  were  to  be  found  on  the  Campus  Mar- 
tius  and  markets  grouped  themselves  in  definite  places  to  such 
an  extent  that  streets  were  named  for  particular  trades,  Grain 
Merchants'  Street,  Belt-makers'  Street,  Sandal-makers'  Street 
among  others. 

In  spite  of  the  stimulus  of  a  developing  business  methodology, 
the  Roman  thinkers  formulated  no  important  economic  ideas. 
Like  the  Greeks  they  went  little  further  than  to  praise  agricul- 
ture and  to  deprecate  trade.  Cicero  approved  trade  only  on  a 
scale  large  enough  to  permit  a  merchant  to  purchase  an  estate, 
retire,  and  live  like  a  "  gentleman."  The  Roman  retailers  were 
mostly  freed  slaves,  aliens,  and  members  of  the  lowest  classes. 
They  were  looked  upon  with  contempt,  debarred  from  the  le- 
gions, and  assigned  to  the  protection  of  the  god  of  thieves. 

Any  real  Roman  contribution  to  economic  thought  came  as  the 
result  of  the  subject  matter  and  method  of  Roman  Law.  On  the 
score  of  subject  matter,  Roman  Law  emphasized  individualism, 
promulgated  an  absolute  doctrine  of  private  property,  recognized 
the  pecuniary  character  of  assets,  and  accepted  the  idea  of  inter- 
est as  well  as  rent.  It  emphasized  a  "  natural  economic  order  " 
and  minimized  the  importance  of  labor  in  the  productive  process 
as  compared  with  the  place  of  nature.  On  the  score  of  method, 
the  Roman  jurisconsults  contributed  and  exemplified  processes 
of  precise  formulation  of  ideas  and  facile  uses  of  abstraction. 

With  the  decline  of  the  Roman  rule,  the  pecuniary  substruc- 


402    THE  ECONOMIC  VIEW  OF  CIVILIZATION 

ture  began  to  go  to  pieces.  The  Gothic  hordes  poured  out  of 
the  wilds  of  northern  and  northeastern  Europe.  The  "  Roman 
Peace"  ended  and  darkness  closed  down  upon  the  western 
world.  Pillage  became  more  profitable  than  commerce  or  in- 
dustry, "  petty  warfare  became  a  chronic  misery;  the  admirable 
Roman  roads  fell  into  disrepair;  commerce  shrank  to  a  dribble 
of  luxuries  for  the  powerful  and  a  local  exchange  of  indispen- 
sables  like  iron,  salt,  and  tar  for  the  commonalty;  manufacturing 
for  a  wide  market  almost  disappeared;  coinage  became  scanty, 
irregular  and  incredibly  confused." 7  Business  economy  reverted 
to  furtive  barter. 

MONEY  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

The  economic  thought  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  dominated 
by  the  Church  or  Canon  Law,  first  compiled  about  1140  by 
the  monk  Gratian,  and  the  scholastic  teachings  of  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas  ( 1225-1274)  .8  While  these  two  bodies  of  writing  were 
considerably  influenced  by  a  revival  of  interest  in  the  Roman 
Law  of  the  Corpus  juris  canonid  and  philosophy  of  Aristotle, 
they  were  Christian  bodies  of  thought  and  great  care  was  taken 
to  purge  ancient  law  and  philosophy  of  any  pagan  or  individual- 
istic taint. 

Private  property  was  accepted  and  communism  was  declared 
a  mere  ideal  made  unattainable  by  the  fall  of  man.  An  indiffer- 
ence to  wealth  was  suggested  and  the  social  responsibilities  of 
wealth  were  emphasized.  Labor  was  highly  regarded  and  idle- 
ness frowned  upon.  Nevertheless,  only  the  labor  involved  in 
the  physical  production  of  consumable  goods  was  explicitly  com- 
mended. The  artes  fecuniativat  were  looked  upon  with  sus- 
picion and  trading  profits  were  only  grudgingly  condoned.  It 
was  considered  improper  to  expect  any  money-compensation  for 
the  use  of  lent  money  —  to  demand  anything  beyond  simple  re- 
imbursement. To  be  sure,  in  the  later  Middle  Ages  certain  defi- 
nite exceptions  were  recognized  as  suitable  grounds  for  interest- 

7  Mitchell,  Business  Cycles,  p.  67. 

8  The  more  important  passages  from  Aquinas*  Summa  thcologfca  may  be 
found  in  Monroe,  Early  Economic  Thought. 


MODERN  MERCANTILISM  403 

taking,  such  as  missed  opportunities  for  gain,  loss  incurred  by 
or  injury  accruing  to  the  lender,  delay  in  repayment,  and  the 
like.  The  "just  price"  and  the  "just  wage'*  were  constantly 
referred  to  in  the  sense  of  standards.  In  fact,  the  "  just  price  " 
—  determined  by  constituted  authorities  independently  of  the 
trading  advantages  of  the  moment  —  included  a  return  which 
would  support  the  seller  in  a  fashion  "  suitable  "  or  "  proper  " 
to  his  station  in  life.  However,  by  the  beginning  of  the  XlVth 
century  commerce  greatly  expanded,  the  supply  of  money  in- 
creased, and  the  restrictive  philosophies  of  the  early  Schoolmen 
began  to  be  severely  strained.  Nicole  Oresme  (1320-1382)  of- 
fered some  shrewd  observations  on  the  role  and  nature  of  money, 
condemned  the  debasement  of  the  currency,  presented  an  explicit 
statement  of  what  is  now  called  Gresham's  law,  and  attempted 
to  lay  down  principles  to  govern  the  practice  of  bimetallism/ 
Throughout  the  period,  however,  the  fundamental  coloring  of 
economic  thought  was  furnished  by  moral,  ethical,  and  religious 
considerations. 


MODERN  MERCANTILISM 

The  beginning  of  the  modern  era  brought  with  it  sweeping 
changes  in  the  economic  substructure  of  civilization.  The  growth 
of  intertown  and  interregional  trade  and  the  coincident  widen- 
ing of  markets  became  apparent.  The  spread  of  nationalism  was 
rapid  and  led  to  the  formation  of  large  absolutist  national  States 
in  the  west:  France,  Spain,  Portugal,  England,  and  the  later  Ger- 
man territorial  princedoms.  The  urban  units  of  the  mediaeval 
economy  were  replaced  by  unified  national  economic  areas.  Mer- 
cenary armies  replaced  the  feudal  militia;  the  centralization  of 
administration  established  a  salaried  officialdom  where  feudal 
methods  of  self-government  had  prevailed.10  Slowly  but  surely 
the  idea  of  estate-management  for  money-revenue  instead  of  for 
subsistence  progressed.  Taxation  and  the  processes  of  State  credit 

8  Important  sections  of  Oresnie's  De  origine,  natura,  jure  et  mutationibus 
monctarum  may  be  found  in  translation  in  Monroe,  Early  Economic  Thought. 

10  Spann,  The  History,  of  Economics,  tr.  Eden  and  Cedar  Paul  (1930),  pp. 
29-30. 


THE  ECONOMIC  VIEW  OF  CIVILIZATION 

tended  more  and  more  to  be  carried  upon  a  monetary  basis  in- 
stead of  by  payments  in  kind. 

For  good  or  ill,  by  the  latter  part  of  the  XVth  century  man- 
kind in  western  and  central  Europe  had  begun  to  think  for  it- 
self, to  test  the  prescriptive  rights  and  duties  of  mediaeval  eco- 
nomic thought,  to  reject  much  of  the  old,  and  to  adopt  much  that 
was  new.  Instead  of  clinging  to  authority  as  a  guide,  everywhere 
men  set  up  "  change  "  and  "  progress  "  as  watchwords  of  their 
enduring  conflict  with  the  problems  of  economic  existence.  New 
beliefs,  new  values,  and  new  institutions  began  to  affect  not  only 
the  intellectual  life  of  Europe,  the  Renaissance,  and  its  religious 
life,  the  Reformation,  but  its  business  life,  the  Commercial  Revo- 
lution, as  well. 

These  circumstances  as  well  as  others  led  to  the  expression, 
during  the  three  hundred  years  following  1450,  of  a  number  of 
related  economic  ideas  which  are  referred  to  as  Mercantilism. 
Basically,  the  Mercantilists  glorified  the  State  as  an  economic 
unit,  as  the  guardian  of  social  interest.  They  held  money  in 
high  esteem  and  foreign  trade  as  well,  for  they  considered  com- 
merce as  the  chief  means  of  bringing  money  into  the  State. 
Consequently,  they  believed  that  the  State  should  foster  industry, 
the  forerunner  of  commerce.  As  a  group,  they  concerned  them- 
selves largely  with  the  ways  in  which  the  State  might  secure  and 
maintain  a  favorable  balance  of  trade  so  as  to  conserve  and  in- 
crease its  stock  of  money  and  precious  metals.  While  they  held 
that  the  chief  object  of  gain  to  their  native  State  in  its  transac- 
tions with  other  States  should  be  gain  in  money  or  precious 
metals,  they  did  not  hold  that  money  alone  is  wealth.  They 
did  not  esteem  money  as  an  end  in  itself  but  on  account  of  its 
productive  effects.  "Money  begetteth  trade,"  wrote  Thomas 
Mun  (1571-1641),  and  "trade  encreaseth  money."11  Neverthe- 
less, their  esteem  for  money  and  their  exaltation  of  artificial 
wealth  above  natural  wealth  represented  an  idea  quite  new  to 
economic  thinking.  In  addition,  they  favored  the  regulation  of 
domestic  production  and  consumption  down  to  minute  particu- 
lars, identifying  the  interests  of  the  State  with  the  interests  of  the 
merchants,  and  apparently  thinking  of  the  State  as  though  it 

11  Spann,  The  History  of  Economics,  tr.  Eden  and  Cedar  Paul  (1930),  p.  34. 


THE  PHYSIOCRATS 


405 


were  itself  a  great  trading  enterprise,  profiting  from  the  excess 
of  its  foreign  sales  over  its  foreign  purchases. 

While  Mercantilism  cannot  be  said  to  involve  a  systematic  gen- 
eral view  of  economic  processes  taken  as  a  whole,  there  was  an 
essential  unity  of  opinion  in  the  writings  of  Antonio  Serra  (late 
XVIth  and  early  XVIIth  centuries),  Antoine  de  Montchretien 
(1576-1621,  the  first  writer  to  use  the  term  "  political  economy  "), 
Thomas  Mun,  Philipp  Wilhelm  von  Hornik  (1638-1712),  and 
Sir  James  Denham  Steuart  (1712-1780)  ,12  In  spite  of  wide  varia- 
tions over  time  and  space,  and  in  spite  of  emphasis  upon  com- 
merce in  Italy,  Holland,  and  England  and  upon  industry  in 
France  and  Germany,  the  central  theme  of  Mercantilism  influ- 
enced and  expressed  itself  in  the  restrictive  policies  of  such  po- 
litical statesmen  and  rulers  as  Colbert,  Burleigh,  Cromwell,  and 
Frederick  the  Great. 


THE  PHYSIOCRATS 

The  first  serious  and  systematic  challenge  to  Mercantilism  was 
presented  in  the  ideas  of  a  small  but  influential  group  of  writers 
who  called  themselves  Les  Economist?*,  now  referred  to  as  the 
Physiocrats,  who  flourished  in  France  in  the  second  half  of  the 
XVIIIth  century.  The  Physiocrats,  or  Economists,  consisted  of 
a  small  and  devoted  group  of  disciples  and  Dr.  Francois  Quesnay 
(1694-1774),  their  inspiring  leader.13  Generally  they  are  consid- 
ered the  founders  of  systematic  economic  thought  because  they 
saw  the  processes  of  economic  life  as  a  whole  and  because  they 
were  the  first  to  study  these  processes  from  the  point  of  view  of 
law,  principle,  and  causation.  However  faulty  were  the  physio- 
cratic  laws  or  principles,  the  fact  remains  that  the  Physiocrats  be- 
lieved that  questions  should  be  asked  and  that  laws  and  princi- 

12  Serra,  Breve  trattato  delle  cause  che  possono  far  abbondare  H  regni  d'oro  e 
d'argento  dove  non  sono  miniere   (1613);  Montchretien,  Traite  de  I' Economic 
folitique  (1615);  Mun,  England's  Treasure  by  Forraign  Trade  (1664);  Hornik, 
Oesterreich  uber  alles,  tuenn  es  nur  will  (1684);  Steuart,  An  Inquiry  into  the  Prin- 
ciples of  Political  O economy  (1767).    Passages  from  Serra,  Mun,  and  Hornik  ap- 
pear in  Monroe,  Early  Economic  Thought. 

13  Passages  from  Quesnay's  Tableau  cconomique  (1758)  may  be  found  in 
translation  in  Monroe,  Early  Economic  Thought. 


406    THE  ECONOMIC  VIEW  OF  CIVILIZATION 

pies  should  be  sought.  Therein  lies  their  principal  contribution 
to  economic  thinking. 

The  real  effort  of  the  Physiocrats  was  to  remove  emphasis  from 
commerce  and  industry  where  the  Mercantilists  had  placed  it. 
They  contended  that  manufacture  changes  only  the  form  of 
wealth  and  that  the  value  of  a  finished  product  is  no  more  than 
the  value  of  the  raw  material  and  the  value  of  the  labor  and  tools 
used  upon  the  finished  product.  On  the  other  hand,  they  held 
that  the  former  produces  a  value  over  and  above  the  costs  of  pro- 
duction. Consequently,  they  believed  that  a  State  could  not  be- 
come rich  by  working  up  its  raw  materials  and  exporting  them 
in  return  for  money.  Rather,  they  argued  that  the  State  profits 
most  from  increasing  the  froduit  net,  the  surplus  of  the  raw 
produce  of  thetarth  left  after  defraying  the  cost  of  its  production. 

Deriving  their  concepts  in  part  from  Newton  and  in  part  from 
Stoicism,  they  sought  the  ordre  nature!,  a  natural  law  as  em- 
braced in  physical  forces.  In  their  search  they  came  to  believe 
that  in  the  long  run  the  individual  interest  coincides  with  the 
interest  of  the  group  and  leads  to  the  attainment  of  the  ordre 
naturel.  Thus,  the  minute  and  inclusive  State  regulations,  char- 
acteristic of  Mercantilism,  were  held  to  be  contrary  to  individual 
interest,  which  it  was  thought  desirable  to  foster.  Free  com- 
petition, free  labor,  and  free  trade  were  praised.  The  hoarding 
of  precious  metals  was  frowned  upon  and  the  production  and 
exchange  of  natural  riches  under  the  direction  of  unimpeded 
self-interest  was  encouraged. 

THE  ECONOMISTS 

To  the  Scotch  philosopher  Adam  Smith  (1723-1790),  who  pub- 
lished his  monumental  treatise  An  Inquiry  into  the  Nature  and 
Causes  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations  in  1776,  the  mercantilists  and 
physiocratic  ideas  were  not  entirely  acceptable.  Basically,  Smith's 
interest  was  that  of  the  Mercantilists :  he  endeavored  to  find  out 
how  national  welfare  and  wealth  might  best  be  attained.  Never- 
theless, he  was  emphatic  in  his  belief  that  the  wealth  of  a  nation 
does  not  depend  either  on  the  balance  of  trade  or  on  the  quantity 
of  money  or  precious  metals  within  its  borders.  He  agreed  with 


THE  ECONOMISTS 


407 


the  Physiocrats  that  the  best  policy  of  government  in  respect  to 
industry  and  commerce  is  a  "  let  alone  "  policy.  He  argued  that 
the  best  national  program  is  one  o£  laissez  faire,  that  if  men  fol- 
low their  self-interest  they  will  be  guided  as  by  an  "invisible 
hand"  to  work  the  public  good.  Departing  from  the  physio- 
cratic  idea,  he  argued  that  the  real  source  of  a  country's  wealth  is 
its  "  annual  labor  "  —  not  merely  its  agricultural  labor  —  and  that 
the  best  way  to  increase  a  country's  wealth  is  to  make  its  labor 
more  effective  and  to  husband  and  increase  the  products  of  labor. 
The  specialization  of  tasks  or  the  division  of  labor  is  the  princi- 
pal factor  in  increasing  the  fruitf ulness  of  labor  and  thereby  en- 
hancing prosperity.  In  fact,  to  Smith  the  division  of  labor  was 
more  or  less  the  starting  point  for  the  whole  economic  process. 
From  this  starting  point  Smith's  reasoning  went  on  to  declare 
that  the  further  the  division  of  labor  is  pushed,  the  more  produc- 
tion comes  to  be  carried  on  with  an  eye  to  the  market.  For  pur- 
poses of  the  market,  then,  there  must  develop  a  general  means 
of  exchange  or  instrument  of  trade,  such  as  money.  Commodi- 
ties are  exchanged  in  the  market  through  money  acting  as  a 
medium  of  exchange  and  thus  there  develops  an  exchange-value 
or  price  of  goods  as  contrasted  with  their  use-value.  The  process 
of  exchange  is  accomplished  in  line  with  exchange-value  or  price, 
and  so  price  becomes  of  great  importance  since  it  affects  the  pro- 
duction of  goods  by  the  expectation  of  the  price  to  be  realized 
and  the  distribution  of  goods  by  determining  who  can  buy  them. 
Thus,  we  see  that  Smith  made  a  notable  step  forward  in  indi- 
vidualistic economic  thinking.  He  rejected  the  idea  of  produc- 
tive circulation,  an  idea  basic  to  both  the  Mercantilists  and  the 
Physiocrats,  and  for  the  first  time  directed  attention  to  a  theory  of 
value  and  of  price.14  The  elaboration  of  Smith's  foundations  of 
classical  economics  was  principally  carried  on  by  Thomas  Robert 
Malthus  (1766-1834),  a  young  parish  clergyman;  David  Ricardo 
(1772-1823),  a  wealthy  broker;  Nassau  William  Senior  (1790- 
1864),  a  teacher  of  political  economy  at  Oxford;  and  John  Stuart 
Mill  (1806-1873),  an  executive  of  the  East  India  Company.15 

14  Spann,  History  of  Economics,  pp.  99-100. 

15  JUcardo's  most  notable  work  was  Principles  of  Political  Economy  and  Taxa- 
tion (1817)*,  Senior,  An  Outline  of  the  Science  of  Political  Economy  (1836); 


408    THE  ECONOMIC  VIEW  OF  CIVILIZATION 

In  his  epoch-making  Essay  on  the  Principle  of  Population,  Mal- 
thus  presented  the  stern  theory  that  human  beings  tend  to  in- 
crease more  rapidly  than  does  the  food  supply,  that  human  beings 
increase  in  geometrical  progression  (2,  4,  8,  16,  32,  etc.)  and  that 
foodstuffs  increase  only  in  arithmetic  progression  (2,  4,  6,  8,  10, 
etc.).  These  tendencies  may  only  be  held  in  check  by  (i)  posi- 
tive checks,  such  as  war,  pestilence,  and  famine,  and  (2)  preven- 
tive checks,  such  as  abstinence  from  marriage,  abstinence  from 
the  begetting  of  children,  and  the  postponement  of  marriage  — 
deliberate  measures,  rationally  conceived.  Thus,  Malthus  infers 
from  his  law  of  population  that  governments  should  remove  all 
hindrances  to  the  cultivation  of  the  soil  and  favor  the  preventive 
checks,  and,  in  particular,  the  postponement  of  marriage.  He 
believed  that  wages  tend  to  sink  to  the  level  of  the  minimum  of 
subsistence  and  that  then  the  positive  checks  begin  to  apply.  He 
recommended  the  reduction  of  poor  relief  because  public  charity 
took  away  the  incentive  to  individual  prudence,  and  called  more 
mouths  into  the  world  without  adding  to  the  food  to  be  put  into 
those  mouths.  By  implication,  if  not  by  direct  statement,  Mal- 
thus recognized  the  law  of  diminishing  returns  from  land. 

Ricardo  held  that  the  chief  object  of  economic  inquiry  should 
be  the  distribution  of  wealth.  In  addition,  he  believed  that  of  the 
three  distributive  factors,  profits,  wages,  and  rent,  the  last  named 
was  by  far  the  most  important  matter  for  study.  Out  of  the  Mal- 
thusian  theory  of  the  tendency  of  population  to  expand,  Ricardo 
fashioned  his  own  famous  law  of  differential  rent.  'Observing 
the  progressive  resort  to  poorer  soils  and  the  more  intensive  cul- 
tivation of  better  soils  he  brought  out  very  clearly  the  fact  of 
diminishing  returns  in  agriculture  and  his  explanation  of  rent 
as  the  result  of  differences  in  the  productivity  of  soils.  On  the 
score  of  wages,  Ricardo  accepted  the  Malthusian  idea  that  they 
tend  to  seek  the  level  of  the  minimum  of  subsistence.  To  a  cer- 
tain extent  this  idea  represented  the  foundation  of  Ricardo's  theo- 
ries of  distribution  and  his  claim  that  the  "  natural "  tendency  in 
any  country  is  toward  an  increase  in  rents  and  a  reduction  in 
profit  while  (real)  wages  remain  constant. 

Malthus,  Essay  on  the  Principle  of  Population  (1798);  Mill,  Principles  of  Political 
Economy  (1848). 


LAISSEZ  FAIRE  409 

LAISSEZ  FAIRE 

Broadly  speaking,  Ricardo  championed  mobile  capital,  unquali- 
fied free  trade,  an  "  iron  law  of  wages,"  and  a  tentative  "  quantity 
theory  of  money."  It  began  to  be  plain  that,  after  Ricardo,  laissez 
faire  would  mean  far  more  of  a  ruthless  individualism  than  the 
Physiocrats  had  intended.  Ricardo's  positiveness  of  statement, 
his  willingness  to  attack  the  burning  questions  of  his  time,  his 
rejection  of  concrete  induction,  and  his  abstract  but  practical  con- 
ception of  economics  coupled  with  his  use  of  the  deductive 
method  combined  to  make  him,  dominate  his  followers  and  em- 
bitter his  critics. 

John  Stuart  Mill  stands  out  as  the  culminating  figure  in  Eng- 
land so  far  as  the  so-called  classical  economy  is  concerned.  His 
outstanding  book,  Principles  of  Political  Economy  with  Some  of 
Their  Applications  to  Social  Philosophy,  was  brilliantly  written 
and  eminently  logical.  Unquestionably  his  principal  contribu- 
tion to  economic  thought  lies  in  his  expository  restatement  of  the 
theories  of  the  classical  economists,  in  clarification  and  systema- 
tization,  rather  than  in  any  very  important  originality.  Appar- 
ently his  major  aim  was  to  demonstrate  beyond  a  doubt  that 
economics  offers  a  field  for  direct  deduction  and  that  economic 
and  social  laws  are  as  genuine  as  those  of  physics  or  chemistry. 
Thus  it  is  that  we  find  in  his  pages  very  definite  formulae.  Here 
is  a  clarified  statement  of  the  idea  of  market  value  as  responding 
to  demand  and  supply;  of  natural  or  normal  value  as  fixed  by 
the  cost  of  production;  of  the  Malthusian  law  of  population;  of 
the  Ricardian  law  of  rent;  of  Senior's  principal  and  original  eco- 
nomic contribution,  the  theory  that  interest  represents  the  reward 
of  abstinence,  exercised  by  capitalists  in  refraining  from  currently 
consuming  their  incomes;  of  Ricardo's  argument  for  free  trade; 
and  of  the  quantity  theory  of  money,  among  others. 

In  important  respects,  Mill  was  less  dismal  in  his  outlook  than 
the  preceding  classical  economists.  He  was  genuinely  concerned 
about  and  sympathetic  toward  the  poor  and  the  downtrodden. 
Consequently  he  was  not  averse  to  a  mild  form  of  interference 
and  intervention  on  the  part  of  the  State,  such  as  the  diffusion  of 
property  by  means  of  the  regulation  and  taxation  of  inheritances. 


4IO    THE  ECONOMIC  VIEW  OF  CIVILIZATION 

In  a  sense  he  was  a  gentle  optimist,  for  he  believed  quite  defi- 
nitely in  the  continual  improvement  of  human  nature  and  that 
as  human  nature  improves  the  whole  distributive  process  grows 
better  and  better.  He  held  that  production  was  subject  to  in- 
exorable laws  beyond  the  control  of  men,  but  he  believed  dis- 
tribution to  be  an  arbitrary  process,  "  a  matter  of  human  institu- 
tions solely." 

As  the  so-called  Industrial  Revolution  wore  on,  it  became  more 
and  more  apparent  to  many  that  the  doctrine  of  laissez  jaire  as 
a  guiding  economic  principle  under  which  to  realize  the  indi- 
vidualistic purposes  of  life  was  scarcely  adapted  to  many  of  the 
newer  conditions  of  economic  life.  Conditions  among  the  fac- 
tory workers  were  deplorable.  The  low  wages,  long  hours,  and 
unbearable  living  quarters  these  workers  had  to  endure  and  the 
sickness,  plague,  and  even  starvation  which  often  resulted  cast  a 
dark  shadow  of  suffering  over  the  period.  Laissez  jaire  worked 
well  enough  so  long  as  men  could  acquire  control  o£  the  simple 
instruments  necessary  to  carry  on  industry  under  a  handicraft 
system.  However,  under  a  factory  system  it  was  neither  satisfac- 
tory nor  effective  for  the  economist  merely  to  lean  back  and  tell 
the  workers  that  they  must  rely  upon  their  own  competitive 
powers  to  improve  their  condition,  that  State  intervention  was 
unnecessary  in  the  interests  of  the  sufferers. 

THE  SOCIALISTS 

Inevitably,  then,  there  appeared  a  group  of  writers  who  hotly 
denounced  the  classical  economic  theory  o£  laissez  faire  and  who 
proposed  that  society  take  a  hand  in  improving  the  lot  of  its  in- 
dividual members.  The  individual  in  society  might  still  be  the 
end  of  economic  inquiry,  but  the  weak  and  ill-equipped  indi- 
vidual was  to  be  considered  as  well  as  the  strong  and  capable. 
These  new  writers,  or  Socialists,  as  they  came  to  be  called,  in 
general  believed  that  society  should  use  one  or  more  of  the  fol- 
lowing means  to  relieve  suffering:  (i)  destroy  or  weaken  pri- 
vate property,  (2)  substitute  a  rational  and  systematic  coordina- 
tion of  economic  forces  for  free  competition,  and  (3)  establish 
human  equality.  In  fact,  in  practically  every  shade  of  socialist 


THE  SOCIALISTS 

thought  down  to  the  present,  one  or  more  of  these  tenets  is  held 
important  and  fundamental. 

The  first  socialist  systematist  of  note  was  Henri  de  Saint-Simon 
(1760-1825).  Although  his  disciples,  Enfantin  (1796-1864)  and 
Hazard  (1791-1832),  anticipated  most  of  the  later  socialistic  ideas, 
Saint-Simon  himself  was  content  to  advocate  a  sweeping  reor- 
ganization of  society  with  expert  guidance  and  effective  control 
carefully  provided  for.16  Then  began  a  series  of  visionary  social-  < 
istic  schemes  which  were  doomed  to  failure.  Fourier  (1772- 
1837)  proposed  voluntary  associations  of  cooperative  and  self- 
sufficing  communities  called  "  phalanxes." 1T  Robert  Owen 
(1771-1858)  1S  and  Louis  Blanc  (i8ii~i882),19  to  mention  but  a 
few,  also  hoped  to  realize  some  socialistic  actuality  through  the 
establishment  of  small  cooperative  commonwealths.  Pierre  Jo- 
seph Proudhon  (1809-1865)  sponsored  the  establishment  of  a 
bank  of  exchange,  which  was  to  buy  from  every  producer  the 
goods  he  had  made,  giving  him  in  payment  a  note  proportional 
to  the  amount  of  labor  that  had  been  expended,  the  bank  giving 
credit  without  payment  for  the  accommodation.20  He  argued 
that  no  one  would  then  need  to  borrow  from  the  capitalists  and 
that  they  in  turn  would  have  to  set  to  work  themselves. 

Building  upon  Ricardo,  Saint-Simon,  and  Proudhon,  Karl 
Johann  Rodbertus-Jagetzow  (1805-1875)  organized  the  ideas  of 
the  Socialists  and  established  them  in  Germany.21  He  believed 
that  the  State  should  guide  its  own  destiny,  that  private  prop- 
erty should  be  abolished,  that  production  should  be  organized 
for  the  satisfaction  of  social  needs  rather  than  for  profit,  and  that 
labor  was  the  sole  factor  in  production.  While  he  clearly  sys- 
tematized his  theory,  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  construct  the 
vital  program  which  it  implied  and  ended  by  advocating  mild 
State  interference  with  economic  phenomena.  The  most  influ- 

16  Saint-Simon,  V Industrie  (1817),  Du  systeme  industriel  (1821),  Nouveau 
christianisme  (1825);  Hazard,  Doctrine  de  Saint-Simon,  Exposition,  Premiere  annee 
(1828). 

17  Traite  de  V association  domestique-agricole  (1822). 

18  A  New  View  oj  Society  (1813). 

19  Organisation  du  travail  (1839). 

20  Sy steme  de  contradictions  ectntormqtte£y'<tu  philosophic  de  la  misere  (1840). 

21  Die  Forderungen  der  arbeitenden  Klassen  (1885,  posthumous  publication). 


4I2    THE  ECONOMIC  VIEW  OF  CIVILIZATION 

ential  of  all  the  early  Socialists  was  Heinrich  Karl  Marx  (1818- 
1883),  an  intelligent,  revolutionary-minded  German  Jew.  Marx 
went  back  for  his  theoretical  beginnings  to  Smith  and  Ricardo. 
From  them  he  took  what  he  chose,  whatever  suited  his  ends. 
Certainly  from  them  he  took  his  basic  idea  that  labor  creates  all 
wealth.  Smith  and  Ricardo,  by  making  labor  the  source  of  value, 
laid  the  doctrinal  foundation  for  Marx's  argument  that  rent,  in- 
terest, and  profits  represent  deductions  from  the  product  which 
labor  alone  creates,  and  which  therefore  should  go,  undimin- 
ished,  to  the  workers.  ^ 

Marxian  Socialism,  outlined  in  the  Communist  Manifesto22 
and  rationalized  in  Das  Kapital  (1867),  held  that  the  struggle 
between  the  rich  and  the  poor  could  be  distinguished  throughout 
history;  that  because  of  the  institution  of  private  property,  the 
capitalist  is  able  to  control  the  instruments  of  production  and  to 
exploit  the  "  wage  slaves  ";  that  free  competition  ruins  all  but  a 
few  very  wealthy  men;  that  the  concentration  of  capital  involves 
repeated  disturbances  of  the  market,  consequent  crises,  and  wide- 
spread unemployment.  He  contended  that  as  the  class  struggle 
goes  on,  the  proletariat,  because  it  outnumbers  all  other  classes, 
would  eventually  gain  control  of  society,  that  it  would  take  pos- 
session of  the  means  of  production  and  from  the  superfluity  of 
products  every  one  would  receive  according  to  his  needs.  How- 
ever, he  did  not  attempt  to  present  a  detailed  description  of  the 
prophesied  collectivist  system,  or  to  indicate  how  distribution  was 
to  be  effected  and  his  ideal  society  organized.  At  least  until  the 
present,  it  appears  that  Marx's  permanent  contribution  to  eco- 
nomics is  one  of  method  rather  than  of  subject  matter.  Certain 
it  is,  that  many  of  the  more  modern  Socialists  have  broken  com- 
pletely away  from  Marx's  theory  and  follow  him  only  inciden- 
tally and  especially  in  his  desire  for  some  type  of  social  Utopia. 
On  the  score  of  method,  however,  Marx  rejected  deduction  and 
thought  of  economics  as  an  inductive  science  which  should  study 
the  changing  institutions  of  a  given  economic  order.  His  fol- 
lowers, in  adopting  his  method,  have  formed  various  types  of  po- 
litical parties,  adhering  in  the  main,  however,  to  his  ideas. 
22  Manifest  der  'kpmmunistischen  Pcartei  (1848,  with  Engels). 


THE  HISTORICAL  SCHOOL 

THE  CRITICAL  SCHOOL 

Along  with  the  protest  of  Socialism  against  the  classical  econo- 
mists appeared  the  so-called  "  critical  school "  of  thinkers  who 
came  much  closer  to  meeting  directly  the  orthodox  and  classical 
ideas.  As  a  group,  these  "  critical "  economists  occupy  a  position 
midway  between  that  of  the  older  orthodox  economists  and  that 
of  the  Socialists,  who  denounced  the  older  ideas  that  were  incon- 
sistent with  their  tenets  as  mere  apologies  for  and  products  of  the 
existing  economic  order. 

The  most  influential  thinker  of  this  "critical  school"  was 
Simonde  de  Sismondi  (1773-1 842)  .2S  With  the  early  Socialists, 
Sismondi  criticized  individualistic  economics  and  free  competi- 
tion, but  he  cannot  be  numbered  among  them.  He  believed  that 
all  economists  should  be  primarily  concerned  with  human  wel- 
fare and  not  with  the  production  of  wealth,  and  that  the  idea 
of  a  "  passive  "  State  was  anything  but  "  natural,"  historically 
speaking.  He  demanded  systematic  State  action  for  the  protec- 
tion of  the  poor,  but  without  any  collectivization  of  production. 
Sismondi's  point  of  view  was  shared  by  Charles  Brook  Dupont- 
White  (1807-1878),  who  insisted  that  intervention  by  the  State 
would  most  surely  result  in  a  higher  level  of  general  happiness.24 
Both  Sismondi  and  Dupont-White  made  considerable  use  of  his- 
tory to  sustain  their  contentions.  However,  a  still  more  definitive 
historical  angle  of  attack  on  orthodox  classical  theory  was  to  be 
presented  by  the  so-called  "  historical  school "  of  economics. 

THE  HISTORICAL  SCHOOL 

The  most  important  members  of  the  "  historical  school "  were 
Friedrich  List  (i  789^1 846)  ,25  Wilhelm  Kosher  (1817-1894),  and 
Karl  Knies  (i  821-1 898)  ,26  List  contended  that  history  shows 

23  Nouveaux  principes  d' economic  politique  (1819)  and  Etudes  sur  I' economic 
politique  (1817  to  1838). 

24  L'individu  et  I'etat,  Paris  (1857),  arid  La  centralisation  (1860). 

25  Friedrich  List  is  often  classified  as  a  member  of  the  "  critical  "  school. 

26  List,  Das  nationale  System  der  politischen   Oe\onomie    (1841);  Kosher, 
Grundriss  zu  Vorlesungen  ilber  die  Staatstuirthsckajt  nach  geschichtlicher  Methode 
(1843),    System  der  Volksmrthsckaft  (1854);  Knies,  Die  politische  Oe\onomie 
vom  Standpunfye  der  geschichtlichen  Methode  (1853). 


4!4    THE  ECONOMIC  VIEW  OF  CIVILIZATION 

that  every  nation  may  look  forward  to  an  evolution  through  the 
definite  "economic  stages"  of:  (i)  hunting  tribes,  (2)  pastoral 
communities,  (3)  the  agricultural  commonwealth,  (4)  the  agri- 
cultural and  manufacturing  State,  and  (5)  the  agricultural  and 
manufacturing  and  commercial  State.  In  the  first  and  the  last 
stage,  he  argued  that  free  trade  is  advantageous,  but  that  in  the 
intervening  stages  progress  demands  the  protection  of  manufac- 
tures by  the  State.  In  other  words,  he  believed  in  the  idea  of  the 
relativity  of  economic  policy. 

While  List  appears  to  have  been  able  to  find  in  history  only 
what  he  was  looking  for,  Knies  and  others  attempted  to  make 
the  historical  point  of  view  the  center  of  their  thought.  As  an 
attack  on  the  abuse  of  abstraction  and  deduction  and  an  easy 
assumption  of  universals  these  early  "  historical  school "  econo- 
mists contributed  a  great  deal  in  method.  Moreover,  they  set  up 
an  inspiration  for  the  younger  historical  school  headed  by  such 
eminent  thinkers  as  Gustav  von  Schmoller  (1838-1917),  James 
Edwin  Rogers  (1823-1890),  William  Cunningham  (1849-1919), 
and  Sir  William  Ashley  (i 860-1927) .27 

These  younger  economists  stressed  the  idea  that  the  structure 
of  a  nation's  life  is  peculiar  to  a  given  nation  at  a  given  time,  a 
product  of  its  past.  Thus  the  wisdom  of  particular  economic 
policies  is  relative  to  place  and  time.  General  laws,  therefore, 
need  to  be  subordinated  to  an  analysis  of  the  actual  facts  of  a 
nation's  economic  growth.  Consequently  these  scholars  gave 
themselves  over  to  careful  and  painstaking  historical  research 
and  inductive  reasoning.  As  a  result  they  have  produced  a  large 
quantity  of  economic  monographs  which  are  vigorous  in  their 
realism. 

Under  the  constant  attacks  of  the  several  critical  schools,  the 
orthodox  economics  began  to  wither  and  wane  until,  after  1850, 
it  had  lost  much  of  its  prestige.  Nevertheless,  by  1870  a  group 
of  important  writings  began  to  appear  which  so  far  as  method 
is  concerned  revived  the  use  of  abstraction.  In  spite  of  the  fact 
that  much  of  the  methodological  criticism  of  the  Classicists  cen- 

37  Schmoller,  Grundriss  der  allge meinen  Volkstvirtschaftslchre  (1900);  Rogers, 
The  Economic  Interpretation  of  History  (1888);  Cunningham,  Growth  of  English 
Industry  and  Commerce  (1882);  Ashley,  An  Introduction  to  English  Economic 
History  and  Theory  ^ 


THE  MATHEMATICAL  SCHOOL 

tered  on  the  use  of  the  abstract-deductive  method  o£  thought, 
the  older  methodology  came  to  be  defended  and  used.  In  what 
appears  to  be  a  rather  remarkable  display  of  similar  and  related 
ideas,  more  or  less  independently  arrived  at,  these  newer  econo- 
mists asserted  a  complete  faith  in  the  importance  of  abstraction 
in  pure  economic  theory.  For  a  basis  for  their  abstraction  they 
seized,  in  part  at  least,  upon  the  hedonistic  principle  that  man 
always  seeks  pleasure  and  avoids  pain. 

THE  MATHEMATICAL  SCHOOL 

It  is  somewhat  customary  and  usual  to  divide  these  newer 
economists  who  sprang  to  the  defense  of  abstraction  and  adopted 
the  hedonistic  principle  into  two  groups:  (i)  the  mathematical 
school,  and  (2)  the  psychological  school.  Obviously  this  division 
is  somewhat  arbitrary  and  anything  but  mutually  exclusive  so 
far  as  an  absolute  classification  of  the  various  hedonistic  writers 
is  concerned. 

The  mathematical  economists,  best  represented  perhaps  by  An- 
toine  Cournot  (1801-1877),  Hermann  Gossen  (1810-1898),  Wil- 
liam Stanley  Jevons  (1835-1882),  Leon  Walras  (1834-1910), 
Joseph  Schumpeter  (1883-  ),  Vilfredo  Pareto  (1848-1923), 
Irving  Fisher  (1867-  ),  and  Henry  L.  Moore  (1869-  ), 
sought  a  relatively  high  degree  of  abstraction  and  so  turned  to 
mathematics,  the  most  deductive  of  all  the  so-called  "  exact " 
sciences.28  These  writers  realized  that  quantities  of  an  economic 
sort  existed  and  were  functionally  related.  In  general,  they  con- 
centrated their  attention  on  the  phenomenon  of  exchange  in  an 
attempt  to  reduce  their  data  to  the  equational  form,  to  formulate 
observed  ratios  of  exchange.  They  held  the  notion  that  an  eco- 
nomic situation  at  any  time  is  the  result  of  a  complexity  of  shift- 
ing forces  in  constant  search  of  equilibrium.  Consequently  they 

28  Cournot,  Recherches  sur  les  principes  mathematiques  de  la  theorie  des 
richesses  (1838);  Gossen,  EntwicJ^elung  der  Gesetze  des  menschlichen  VerJ^ehrs 
(1854);  Jevons,  The  Theory  of  Political  Economy  (1871);  Walras,  Elements 
d' economic  politique  pure  (1874);  Schumpeter,  Das  Wesen  und  der  Hauptinhall 
der  theoretischen  Nationaloe%pnomie  (1908);  Pareto,  Cours  d' economic  politique 
(1896);  Fisher,  The  Purchasing  Power  of  Money  (1911);  Moore,  Laws  of  Wages 
(1911)  and  Economic  Cycles  (1914).  , 


4I6    THE  ECONOMIC  VIEW  OF  CIVILIZATION 

emphasized  more  clearly  than  any  previous  school  of  economists 
the  distinction  between  a  "  static  "  and  a  "  dynamic  "  economy. 
This  clarification,  together  with  some  very  important  ideas  con- 
cerning the  combination  of  the  factors  in  production,  the  relation 
of  cost  of  production  to  price,  and  the  functions  of  supply  and 
demand  represent  their  chief  contributions. 

THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  SCHOOL 

The  psychological  school  emphasized  the  fact  that  economics 
is  quite  definitely  concerned  with  human  behavior.  The  Aus- 
trian writers  Carl  Menger  (1840-1921),  Friedrich  von  Wieser 
(1851-1926),  Eugene  Bohm  von  Bawerk  (1851-1914)  were  the 
pioneers  and  they  exerted  considerable  influence  on  such  Ameri- 
can economists  as  John  Bates  Clark,  Herbert  Joseph  Davenport, 
Frank  Albert  Fetter,  and  others.29  They  brought  to  their  in- 
quiries a  more  subjective  view  of  economics  to  the  effect  that  the 
source  of  value  is  to  be  found  in  men  and  not  alone  in  materials. 
This  notion  of  subjectivity  led  them  into  a  considerable  preoccu- 
pation with  the  phenomenon  of  demand  considered  as  a  function 
of  human  wants.  The  fact  of  the  satiability  of  human  wants 
impressed  their  thinking  and  gave  rise  to  their  distinguishing 
contribution  to  economic  thinking,  the  idea  of  marginal  utility. 
This  idea  of  marginism  differed  somewhat  from  the  ideas  of  the 
earlier  economic  systems  in  that  it  compared  units  of  want  and 
feeling  instead  of  units  of  things.  It  explains  exchange  values 
by  states  of  feeling  and  of  consciousness  in  general,  but,  in  par- 
ticular, by  the  use  of  least  (marginal)  fractions  as  a  standard  for 
determining  the  value  of  aggregates.  To  the  marginist,  wants 
are  of  varying  degrees  of  urgency,  satisfied  by  successive  units 
of  a  good,  and  the  unit  that  satisfies  the  least  important  want 
which  is  satisfied  at  all,  is  the  unit  that  gives  the  value  to  every  one 
of  the  other  units.  In  spite  of  this  emphasis  upon  utility  as  the 
end-all  and  be-all  of  economic  science  and  the  elaboration  of  the 

29  Menger,  Grundsatze  der  Volkswirthschaftslehre  (1871);  Wieser,  Der 
naturliche  Wert  (1889);  Bohm-Bawerk,  Kapitcd  und  Kapitdzins  (1884);  Clark, 
Distribution  of  Wealth  (1899);  Davenport,  The  Economics  of  Enterprise  (1904); 
Fetter,  The  Principles  oj  Economics  (1904). 


THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  SCHOOL  4x7 

old  idea  of  value  in  use,  the  psychological  school  was  essentially 
classical  in  its  ideas.  Its  disciples  did  not  destroy  or  replace  the 
orthodox  economics.  They  merely  corrected,  extended,  and  elab- 
orated the  earlier  thinking. 

Amid  all  this  welter  of  controversy,  this  congerie  of  highly 
speculative  and  conflicting  theory,  it  was  but  natural  that  some 
one  should  attempt  to  pick  and  choose  in  a  purposive  effort  at 
compromise.  Here  the  eminent  English  economist  Alfred  Mar- 
shall (1842-1924)  made  a  native  generosity,  balance,  and  open- 
mindedness  count  in  influencing  the  establishment  of  what  is 
commonly  called  the  "  eclectic  school."  30  His  influence  in  Eng- 
land and  on  the  Continent  was  widespread  and  only  slightly 
less  so  in  the  United  States,  where  Frank  William  Taussig  and 
Thomas  Nixon  Carver  may  be  roughly  classified  as  disciples.31 

Marshall  attempted  to  show  that  it  is  possible  to  put  a  proper 
emphasis  upon  the  interdependence  of  economic  phenomena 
while  still  examining  into  the  operations  of  the  different  parts 
of  the  economic  mechanism,  and  while  taking  account  of  factors 
which  make  for  change  as  well  as  of  factors  which  make  for 
stability.  Undisturbed  by  the  apparent  conflict  between  the  clas- 
sical idea  of  emphasis  upon  demand,  he  proceeded  to  demon- 
strate that  from  a  short-time  point  of  view  variations  in  demand 
must  certainly  dominate  value,  but  that  in  the  long  run  value 
must  be  sufficient  to  pay  the  costs  of  the  "  representative  firm." 
With  the  same  moderation  in  point  of  view,  he  utilized  what 
seemed  best  in  each  of  the  schools,  classical,  critical,  historical, 
and  psychological.  His  whole  effort  seems  to  have  been  to  raise 
his  own  work  above  the  scene  of  current  controversy,  to  resolve 
differences,  to  give  a  new  certainty  and  scientific  authority  to 
economic  theory,  and  to  achieve  a  more  realistic  organon  of  eco- 
nomic thought.  His  method  was  a  "  qualitative  "  analysis  of  the 
kind  of  forces  at  work  in  economic  life,  an  analysis  which  he 
hoped  would  furnish  a  basis  for  later  "  quantitative  "  analysis  by 
statistical  methods  of  the  relative  strength  and  importance  of  the 
various  forces  at  work. 

30  Principles  of  Economics  (1890). 

31  Taussig,   Principles  of  Economics    (1911);   Carver,  The   Distribution   of 
Wealth  (1904)  and  Essays  in  Social  Justice  (1915). 

S.X. — 2$ 


418    THE  ECONOMIC  VIEW  OF  CIVILIZATION 

THE  INSTITUTIONAL  SCHOOL 

One  additional  so-called  school  needs  to  be  mentioned,  the 
commonly-termed  "  institutional  school."  While  there  are  many 
who  insist  that  an  institutional  economics,  "  differentiated  from 
other  economics  by  discoverable  criteria,  is  largely  an  intellectual 
fiction,"  in  recent  years  it  has  been  somewhat  customary  to  refer 
to  a  number  of  economists  who  evidence  an  intellectual  kinship 
to  Thorstein  Bunde  Veblen  (1857-1929)  as  constituting  the  so- 
called  "  institutional  school."  32  In  no  attempt  to  be  exactly  defini- 
tive or  to  imply  the  possibility  of  complete  differentiation, 
Wesley  Clair  Mitchell,  Walton  Hamilton,  David  Friday,  and 
John  R.  Commons  may  be  mentioned  as  economists  who  call 
themselves,  or  are  called  by  others,  institutional  economists.33 
Basically,  it  seems  safe  to  say  that  the  "  institutionalists  "  seek  to 
develop  a  new  type  of  economic  theory  by  quantitative,  inductive 
investigations  of  the  evolution  and  operation  of  economic  insti- 
tutions. Insofar  as  a  core  of  agreement  seems  to  exist  among 
the  institutionalists,  they  emphasize:  (i)  group  behavior  and  the 
relevancy  of  psychological  theory,  (2)  the  phenomena  of  change, 
the  idea  that  economic  generalizations  should  specify  the  limits 
of  culture  and  time  to  which  they  apply,  (3)  an  advocacy  of 
extensive  descriptive  work,  whether  quantitative  or  otherwise, 
(4)  an  attention  to  uniformities  of  custom,  habit,  and  law  as 
modes  of  organizing  economic  life,  (5)  an  insistence  upon  rele- 
vance to  control  problems  as  the  primary  test  of  economic  theory, 
and  (6)  a  distant  hope  that  the  collection  of  economic  facts  will 
lead  eventually  to  some  integrated  restatement  of  economic 
theory.  While  the  so-called  "  institutionalists  "  exhibit  a  certain 
indifference  to  method  except  as  related  to  specific  researches,  in 
general  their  desire  actually  to  know  the  facts  inevitably  directs 
them  toward  a  wide  use  of  the  statistical  technique.  In  other 
aspects,  their  method  appears  to  be  an  enrichment  and  expansion 
of  the  older  historical  approach.  Certainly  it  rests  upon  an  effort 

32  Veblen,  The  Theory  of  Business  Enterprise  (1904). 

33  Mitchell,  Business  Cycles,  Berkeley,  California  (1913)  and  Business  Cycles, 
New  York  (1927);  Hamilton,  The  Control  of  Wages  (1923)  and  The  Case  oj 
Bituminous  Coal  (1925);  Friday,  Profits,  Wages,  and  Prices  (1920);  Commons, 
The  Distribution  of  Wealth  (1905)  and  Legal  Foundations  of  Capitalism  (1924). 


THEORETICAL  DIFFICULTIES  419 

to  secure  a  complete  understanding  of  sociological,  psychological, 
and  historical  backgrounds  in  order  to  provide  a  more  penetrat- 
ing and  acute  analysis  of  contemporary  economic  phenomena. 

THEORETICAL  DIFFICULTIES 

Such  has  been  and  is  the  course  of  economic  theory  and  method 
insofar  as  this  all-too-brief  and  incomplete  treatment  can  present 
it.  To  the  reader  all  may  seem  confusion,  "  sound  and  fury,  sig- 
nifying nothing."  Indeed,  it  is  certain  that  many  non-professional 
economic  overlookers  in  these  days  despairingly  and  honestly 
sympathize  with  the  opinion  of  Mr.  A.  Edward  Newton  to  the 
effect  that  "  an  *  eminent '  economist  is  always  wrong.  No  two/' 
he  says,  "  have  ever  agreed  as  to  money,  either  gold  or  silver  or 
paper,  wages,  credit,  tariffs,  or  anything  else;  yet  they  remain 
'eminent.'"  While  this  statement  is  putting  the  matter  too 
strong,  it  is  symptomatic  of  the  feeling  of  many  a  layman. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  can  be  no  expectation  of  general 
agreement  among  economists  as  to  the  purpose,  scope,  and  method 
of  economics.  From  the  beginnings  of  economic  theory  down  to 
the  present,  about  the  only  sure  rallying  point  of  inquiry  is  in- 
evitably a  general  picture  of  a  scheme  of  communal  economic 
life,  sufficiently  ordered  to  make  some  analysis  of  it  possible,  and 
sufficiently  imperfect  to  give  point  and  purpose  to  such  an  analy- 
sis in  spite  of  particular  points  of  view  and  specific  analytical 
methods. 

The  difficulties  of  the  economist  are  legion.  In  the  first  place, 
the  opportunity  for  genuine  experimentation  is  sharply  limited. 
As  Frederick  Alden  Bradford  puts  it:  "Progress  in  economics 
is  handicapped  in  a  manner  which  does  not  affect  medicine  and 
the  physical  sciences.  It  is  concerned  to  a  large  extent  with  the 
actions  of  human  beings.  The  inanimate  working  material  of 
the  physical  sciences  lends  itself  admirably  to  experiment  while 
in  medicine,  bacteria  and  animals  may  be  used  in  the  laboratory 
for  experimental  purposes.  Experiments  in  the  economic  field, 
on  the  other  hand,  are  apt  to  prove  dangerous.  Should  they  go 
awry,  as  many  would  be  bound  to  do,  the  results  would  not  be 
pleasing  to  contemplate*  Thus,  while  experiments  have  been 


420   THE  ECONOMIC  VIEW  OF  CIVILIZATION 

made  and  are  still  advocated  from  time  to  time  by  economists, 
most  of  us  prefer  to  make  haste  slowly  lest  the  treatment  prove 
more  harmful  than  the  disease." 34 

In  his  very  approach  to  economic  inquiry,  the  economist  is 
beset  with  trouble.  Because  the  essential  unity  of  all  science  is 
today  appreciated  as  never  before,  the  economist  finds  himself 
entangled  in  a  contemporary  psychology  which  itself  is  still 
fluid,  in  sociology,  in  a  maze  of  possible  but  questionable  bio- 
logical analogies,  and  so  on.  Moreover,  he  must  choose  as  a 
method  the  systematic  formulation  of  laws  or  principles  by  means 
of  abstract  deduction,  or  the  accumulation  and  interpretation  of 
facts  by  way  of  historical,  quantitative,  or  descriptive  observa- 
tion and  research,  or  some  hodge-podge  combination  technique. 
Finally,  there  is  the  profusion  and  complexity  of  the  economic 
groups,  pecuniary  transactions,  productive  activities,  business  or- 
ganizations, marketing  methods,  customs,  legal  restrictions,  and 
human  incentives  with  which  the  economist  must  need  deal,  and 
all  of  which  admit  of  orderly  classification  and  treatment  only 
with  the  utmost  difficulty.  No  wonder,  then,  that  generalized 
scientific  explanations  that  are  widely  accepted  are  so  few.  No 
wonder,  either,  that  the  intellectual  bent  of  the  individual  econ- 
omist is  so  important  to  his  contributions  and  efforts.  Truly, 
we  need  to  remember  that  there  is  no  one  field  of  economics 
exclusively  separated  from  other  fields,  but  rather  %  that  there  are 
myriads  of  fields,  even  one  for  the  individual  economic  observer. 

Whether  the  economics  of  the  future  will  consist  of  a  body  of 
doctrines,  or  a  body  of  facts  scientifically  compiled,  or  simply  a 
method  cr  technique,  or  all  three,  time  alone  will  tell  with  cer- 
tainty. Nevertheless,  the  present  guess,  hazardous  as  it  must  be, 
is  that  the  future  will  hold  a  place  for  each  and  all.  Moreover, 
there  is  the  hope  that  the  newer  economics  will  grapple  with  a 
more  realistic  point  of  view,  will  help  to  guide  the  uncertain  steps 
of  the  nation,  and  will  more  definitely  deal  with  the  everyday 
practical  affairs  of  the  business  world.  Certainly  a  beginning  has 
been  made. 

34  "  The  Economist  Under  Fire,"  The  American  Scholar,  Vol.  I,  No.  3  (May, 
3932),  p.  204. 


THE  "NEW  ERA" 


THE  "NEW  ERA" 


421 


Economically  speaking,  a  thousand  years  have  elapsed  since 
1900,  a  century's  span  since  1906.  The  shoe  began  to  pinch  in 
1907-1913.  Buying  power  did  not  keep  pace  with  increased  pro- 
ducing power.  The  credit  structure  of  the  country  had  to  be  en- 
larged. A  sound  expansion  of  credit  was  made  possible  by  the 
passage  of  the  Federal  Reserve  Act  In  1913.  A  more  questionable 
expansion  of  buying  power  came  to  the  rescue  of  mass  produc- 
tion with  the  development  of  installment  buying.  In  1914  the 
war  brought  to  American  production  that  greatest  of  economic 
gifts  —  "a  sellers'  market."  But  it  was  also  a  speculators'  mar- 
ket, and  in  it  there  was  no  attempt  to  relate  production  to  con- 
sumption, nor  to  the  purchasing  power  of  the  ultimate  consumer. 
People  bought  everything  they  could,  contracted  with  manufac- 
turers for  products  which  they  hoped  to  sell  and  not  to  use.  The 
bubble  burst  in  October,  1919,  and  the  "  arctic  night "  of  1919^- 
1921  set  in.  The  liquidation  of  inventories  began  and  the  ma- 
chinery of  production  came  almost  to  a  stop. 

Faced  with  the  new  practice  of  hand-to-mouth  buying  and 
with  decreased  purchasing  power,  business  struggled  to  set  the 
factory  wheels  in  motion.  In  1921  began  the  period  of  high- 
pressure  sales  methods,  and  of  generous  and  effective  advertis- 
ing. The  new  principle  of  "  obsolescence  "  replaced  the  old  prin- 
ciple of  "  wear  "  and  the  technique  of  shortening  the  style-life  of 
products  was  emphasized  and  extended.  The  continued  growth 
of  installment  buying  converted  future  earning  power  into  cur- 
rent purchasing  power.  Europe's  industry  was  seriously  crippled 
by  the  war  and  her  needs  beckoned  to  American  productive  ca- 
pacity, especially  as  American  bankers  were  only  too  ready  to 
lend  her  money  with  which  to  pay  for  her  needs.  Once  more 
business  and  industry  ran  smoothly  on  to  peaks  of  profit. 

Prosperity  appeared  to  come  to  all  and  to  sweep  onward  by 
irresistible  force.  Pseudo-economists  prophesied  a  "  New  Era  " 
and  the  fever  of  spending  and  speculation  continued  at  an  ever 
more  rapid  pace. 

Abroad,  the  progress  of  industry  continued  to  cause  concern 
to  many  alert  Continental  and  English  economists  and  business 


422    THE  ECONOMIC  VIEW  OF  CIVILIZATION 

men.  The  idea  of  rationalization  reared  Its  head.  Variously 
used  at  first  as  a  term,  by  1928  it  reached  a  kind  o£  definitive 
expression  from  the  pen  of  Oliver  Sheldon,  an  English  manage- 
ment expert,35  Vague  in  its  implications,  it  nevertheless  seemed 
to  hold  out  hope  to  many,  to  suggest,  at  least,  a  general  method 
of  procedure.  At  home,  we  gave  scarcely  a  thought  to  the  eco- 
nomic confusion  going  on  outside  our  borders,  continued  to 
raise  our  tariffs,  and  we  blindly  followed  the  prophets  of  the 
"  New  Era."  And  then  came  the  flood  of  1929-1932,  the  debacle 
of  the  so-called  "  New  Era."  As  these  words  are  written,  we  are 
deep  down  in  the  trough  of  depression.  All  about  us  realistic, 
trenchant,  and  even  bitter  criticisms  of  our  economic  theories 
and  our  economic  system  abound.  Bewildered,  we  avidly  devour 
new  economic  plans  —  their  number  is  legion  3S  —  only  to  reflect 
and  discover  their  fundamental  weaknesses.  Their  range  is  wide 
as  well,  all  the  way  from  the  Russian  scheme  to  the  gentlest  of 
tinkering  with  the  present  competitive  and  profit-taking  system. 
As  nearly  as  balance  and  moderation  can  express  it,  we  appear 
now  to  be  in  a  stage  midway  between  two  systems:  (i)  a  self- 
regulating,  automatic,  individualistic,  competitive,  unregulated, 
unplanned,  and  unplanning  system,  and  (2)  a  system  "  under 
which  future  needs  are  estimated,  production  is  directed  and  con- 
trolled, and  distribution  is  organized."  In  this  intermediate  stage, 
as  Sir  Arthur  Salter  puts  it,  we  have  "  lost  many  of  the  advan- 
tages of  both  "  and  have  "  failed  to  obtain  the  full  benefits  of 
either."  Indeed,  "  without  securing  the  advantages  of  deliberate 
planning,  we  have  enough  official  control  and  private  privilege 
and  monopoly  to  impede  the  automatic  adjustments,  and  to  re- 
strict the  benefits  of  competition  to  the  consumer." 

35  '*  Rationalization  is  the  process  of  associating  together  individual  under- 
takings as  groups  of  firms  in  a  close  form  of  amalgamation,  and,  ultimately,  of 
unifying,  in  some  practicable  degree  of  combination,  whole  industries,  both  na- 
tionally and  internationally;  with  the  allied  objects  (beyond  what  is  possible  to  an 
industry  divided  into  many  competitive  units)  of  increasing  efficiency,  lowering 
costs,  improving  conditions  of  labor,  promoting  industrial  cooperation  and  reducing 
the  wastes  of  competition."  — "  The  Significance  of  Rationalization,"  Harvard 
'Business  Review ,  Vol.  VI,  No.  3  (April,  1928),  p.  268. 

36  An  excellent  summary  of  various  schemes  of  planning  may  be  found  in 
Hhigo  Haan's  pamphlet  American  Planning,  published  by  the  American  Academy 
:>f  Political  and  Social  Science,  Philadelphia  (March,  1932), 


THE  "NEW  ERA"  423 

The  way  out  is  to  escape  the  worst  of  both  systems  and  to  se- 
cure unto  ourselves  the  best  in  each.  Let  Salter  point  the  direc- 
tion: "We  cannot  return  to  the  unregulated  competition  of  the 
last  century;  an  unwillingness  to  accept  some  o£  its  social  conse- 
quences and  the  development  of  modern  industrial  technique  to- 
gether make  that  impossible.  But  we  need  not  therefore  aim  at 
a  regulated  world  from  which  both  individual  competition  and 
freedom  of  enterprise  are  excluded.  To  take  either  course  is  to 
fail  in  the  specific  task  of  this  age.  That  task  is  to  find  not  a 
middle  way  but  a  new  way,  to  fashion  a  system  in  which  com- 
petition and  individual  enterprise  on  the  one  hand,  and  regula- 
tion and  general  planning  on  the  other,  will  be  so  adjusted  that 
the  abuses  of  each  will  be  avoided  and  the  benefits  of  each  re- 
tained. We  need  to  construct  such  a  framework  of  law,  custom, 
institutions,  and  planned  guidance  and  direction,  that  the  thrust 
of  individual  effort  and  ambition  can  operate  only  to  the  general 
advantage.  We  may  find  a  simile  for  our  task  in  the  arch  of  a 
great  bridge,  so  designed  that  the  stresses  and  strains  of  the  sepa- 
rate blocks  which  constitute  it,  each  pushing  and  thrusting  against 
the  other,  support  the  whole  structure  by  the  interaction  of  their 
reciprocal  pressure." S7 

37  "Recovery  (1932). 


AVil 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  FORM  OF 
CIVILIZATION 


INDUSTRY  OLD  AND  NEW 

^  I  foE  TERM  "  INDUSTRY  "  MUST  BE  MADE  LARGE  ENOUGH  TO  COVER 
I      the  whole  range  of  man's  reactions  to  nature,  from  the  work 

JL  of  a  single  savage  making  a  stone  tool  to  the  labor  of  a  group 
of  modern  workers  manufacturing  a  huge  machine.  Every  age  in 
human  history  has  been  an  industrial  one,  for  it  has  been  by  indus- 
try that  man  has  made  himself  man  indeed.  Without  industry 
man  would  not  have  manufactured  tools  and  weapons,  kindled 
fires,  made  huts  and  tents,  domesticated  wild  animals  or  tilled  the 
soil.  Industry  was  at  work  in  the  older  civilizations  of  Egypt  and 
Babylon,  Greece  and  Rome.  Nevertheless,  we  make  no  mistake 
when  we  apply  the  term  "  industry  "  to  the  type  of  activity  char- 
acterizing western  civilization  in  the  second  half  of  the  modern 
period,  or  in  the  last  two  centuries.  There  we  find  the  work  of 
man  so  changed  that  we  must  refer  to  his  new  mode  of  activity  as 
something  that  came  about  through  the  Industrial  Revolution. 
This  revolution  is  something  we  can  identify  at  once  by  pointing 
to  the  steam  engine,  for  it  was  this  machine  which  changed  the 
life  of  man  as  well  as  the  face  of  nature.  If,  however,  we  desire 
to  make  our  identification  of  the  Industrial  Revolution  more  ade- 
quate we  can  do  so  by  referring  to  the  three  factors  operative 
within  it  —  Soil  and  Steam  and  Electricity. 

The  momentous  change  which  created  a  cleft  between  the  late 
modern  era  and  all  the  previous  history  of  the  world  was  caused 
by  two  tremendous  movements:  one  political  and  military,  the 
other  economic  and  social  —  the  French  Revolution  and  the  In- 
dustrial Revolution.  The  French  Revolution  installed  such  a  new 
order  of  things  in  the  political  world  that  since  1789  the  term 
"  government  "  has  assumed  an  entirely  different  meaning  from 
what  it  had  enjoyed  in  the  history  of  the  world.  The  body  politic 
was  born  again  in  the  travail  of  the  State.  But,  however  signifi- 

424 


CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  425 

cant  the  power  of  that  great  revolt  of  the  people  and  however  far- 
reaching  its  influence,  the  French  Revolution  bears  little  com- 
parison to  the  new  form  of  activity  that  was  taking  place  in  the 
same  age,  since  the  Industrial  Revolution  of  the  XVIIIth  century 
was  destined  to  produce  immediate  and  remote  results  in  the 
lives  of  all  classes  of  men  in  the  western  world.  The  tool  was 
mightier  than  the  weapon,  the  factory  more  important  than  the 
arsenal,  and  the  worker  more  influential  than  the  warrior. 

The  term  "  Industrial  Revolution  "  is  capable  of  more  than  one 
interpretation.  Its  most  obvious  sense  is  that  of  the  transfer  from 
hand  labor  to  the  work  of  an  engine,  or  from  man  to  machine. 
The  social  change  that  ran  parallel  with  the  industrial  one  was 
the  removal  of  the  seat  of  labor  from  the  home  to  the  factory; 
from  an  individualized,  domestic  type  of  work  to  a  socialized  and 
mechanized  one.  These  two  simple  factors  make  up  the  intrinsic 
meaning  of  the  term.  But  to  these  obvious  determinants  of  the 
new  mode  of  producing  wealth  we  must  add  certain  social,  eco- 
nomic, and  political  variations  —  tremendous  increase  in  popula- 
tion, world  trade  in  imports  and  exports,  vast  accumulation  of 
capital,  rise  of  the  middle  class,  and  extended  horizons  of  trades 
and  vocations,  thoughts  and  interests.  Likewise  was  there  pro- 
jected into  the  new  order  of  things  a  series  of  problems  for,  the 
scientist,  economist,  and  political  thinker. 

CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION 

When  we  attempt  to  locate  the  causes  of  the  Industrial  Revolu- 
tion, we  begin  by  dismissing  the  idea  that  the  great  change  just 
happened  to  come  about  in  the  course  of  human  events.  Further, 
we  avoid  the  error  of  stating  that  the  change  came  about  at  a 
certain  time,  as  though  it  were  down  on  the  program  of  history. 
Before  the  Revolution  as  such  took  place,  there  was  no  little  fer- 
mentation in  the  pent-up  minds  of  men.  The  old  order,  even  that 
of  the  Renaissance  and  the  Enlightenment,  was  changing.  The 
science  of  the  XVIIth  century  had  won  its  battle  for  freedom  and 
had  acquired  new  heavens  and  a  new  earth.  The  politics  of  the 
XVIIIth  century  was  laying  a  new  foundation  on  the  basis  of 
liberty.  Church  and  State  were  being  forced  to  make  room  for 


426     THE  INDUSTRIAL  FORM  OF  CIVILIZATION 

free  men  with  free  minds.  The  new  scientific  spirit,  or  the  ad- 
venture of  the  modern  mind,  was  inspiring  men  to  explore  the 
land  as  well  as  the  sea  and  to  experiment  with  old  materials  for 
the  sake  of  finding  new  truths.  Such  was  the  intellectual  atmos- 
phere of  the  new  movement  in  connection  with  machinery. 

On  the  more  material  side  was  the  extension  of  trade  and  com- 
merce. England  especially,  being  in  control  of  the  seas,  was  forced 
to  exert  herself  to  meet  the  demands  of  various  countries  seeking 
her  manufactured  goods.  Most  of  these  goods  were  still  being 
produced  by  means  of  the  old  manual  method  in  vogue  from 
the  beginning.  France,  likewise,  in  the  years  preceding  the 
Industrial  Revolution,  was  finding  that  industry  and  commerce 
were  moving  hand  in  hand;  but  she  was  somewhat  more  inter- 
ested in  the  commercial  than  the  industrial,  due  to  superior  op- 
portunities in  the  domain  of  trade.  Demand  was  in  advance  of 
supply,  hence  there  arose  the  desire  to  improve,  to  enhance  the 
conditions  of  manufacture,  so  that  the  production  of  wealth  might 
keep  pace  with  the  desired  distribution  of  it.  Meanwhile  capital 
had  accrued  and  was  awaiting  opportunity  for  profitable  invest- 
ment. Hence  the  times  were  ripe  for  a  complete  clearance  of  old 
methods  in  manufacture  and  the  inauguration  of  principles  as 
novel  in  industry  as  the  principles  of  the  French  Revolution  had 
been  new  in  government. 

This  does  not  mean,  however,  that  the  men  of  those  times  were 
as  conscious  of  their  condition  as  this  appears  to  us  in  the  light 
of  history.  They  felt  their  needs  better  than  they  recognized 
them  and  experienced  desires  for  their  satisfaction  more  fully 
than  they  realized  the  methods  that  would  make  this  possible. 
The  state  of  affairs  was  thus  psychological  rather  than  rational, 
popular  instead  of  professional.  For  most  of  the  discoveries  and 
inventions  were  made  by  average  men  in  the  lower  walks  of  life, 
men  who  were  interested  in  a  few  significant  things  bearing 
directly  upon  their  own  lives  rather  than  what  in  our  easy-going 
manner  we  style  "  scientific  invention."  How  to  plant  and  reap, 
how  to  spin  and  weave,  and  how  to  lengthen  the  arm  of  man  — 
these  were  the  practical  issues  that,  in  time,  were  to  result  in 
advanced  agricultural  methods  and  improved  machines.  Thus 
the  great  Industrial  Revolution  was  not  a  miracle  whose  like  the 


THE  SOIL  427 

world  had  never  seen,  but  a  slow,,  perhaps  tedious  movement, 
which  now  assumes  the  vast  proportions  o£  which  those  little 
builders  were  quite  unaware.  A  distinguished  English  statesman 
has  said,  "  If  in  the  last  hundred  years  the  whole  material  setting 
of  civilized  life  has  altered,  we  owe  it  neither  to  politicians  nor 
to  political  institutions.  We  owe  it  to  the  combined  efforts  of 
those  who  advanced  science  and  those  who  applied  it." 1 

THE  SOIL 

The  commonplace  character  of  this  greater  movement  is  evinced 
by  the  fact  that  it  started  in  the  soil,  for  the  necessity  for  new 
methods  in  agriculture  and  stock  raising  appeared  and  was 
coped  with  before  the  wheels  of  the  Revolution  began  to  turn. 
It  was  not  only  because  agriculture  was  the  foundation  of  all  the 
industries  that  the  beginning  was  made  in  the  field;  the  demands 
for  agricultural  products  during  the  Napoleonic  wars  had  inflated 
prices,  which  offered  a  monetary  incentive  to  improve  farming  by 
scientific  method.  If  a  tenant  of  a  mediaeval  manor  had  traveled 
through  England  during  the  first  half  of  the  XVIIIth  century,  he 
would  have  experienced  but  little  surprise,  since  there  had  been 
few  departures  from  the  farming  methods  of  feudal  days.  The 
land  was  still  laid  in  grain  for  two  years,  and  left  fallow  the  third 
year  for  the  recuperation  of  the  soil.  The  live  stock  would  have 
caused  no  comment,  for  it  was  the  same  in  size  and  diversity  as  it 
had  been  in  the  preceding  centuries.  But  this  feudal  farmer 
would  have  found  living  conditions  greatly  improved  and  a 
spirit  of  contentment  springing  up,  quite  unknown  in  his  more 
meager  and  miserable  days.  Now,  had  this  imaginary  visit  been 
postponed  until  the  close  of  the  century,  the  reason  for  this  new 
spirit  would  have  made  itself  manifest.  Then  he  would  have 
been  surprised  at  the  changes  which  were  taking  place,  for  in 
the  very  earth  the  Industrial  Revolution  was  taking  root,  although 
there  were  many  agricultural  districts  which  were  not  penetrated 
until  as  late  as  1817. 

The  agricultural  pioneer  was  Jethro  Tull,  who  devised  the  drill, 
investigated  the  growth  of  plants,  and  experimented  with  foreign 

1  Warner  and  Martins  The  Groundwork  of  British  History,  p.  584. 


428     THE  INDUSTRIAL  FORM  OF  CIVILIZATION 

grasses.  This  Tull  planted  his  crops  in  drills  or  rows  wide 
enough  apart  for  a  man  to  hoe  and  plow  between  them  with  a 
horse.  In  order  to  prove  his  contention  as  to  the  value  of  pul- 
verizing the  soil,  Tull  raised  eighteen  crops  of  wheat  on  the  same 
land  without  using  any  fertilizer.  Another  of  these  Industrial 
Revolutionists,  as  we  might  call  them,  was  Lord  Townshend, 
George  I's  minister  and  the  first  lord  of  trade  and  the  plantations. 
Townshend's  method  consisted  in  planting  the  soil  with  turnips 
every  third  year  instead  of  letting  the  land  lie  fallow.  This  served 
the  additional  purpose  of  providing  the  winter  food  for  the  cattle 
and  sheep  and,  incidentally,  gained  for  the  lordly  farmer  the  title 
of  "Turnip  Townshend."  On  his  Norfolk  estates,  the  same 
Townshend  installed  a  four-year  rotation  of  crops  which  proved 
so  successful  a  scheme  that  before  the  close  of  the  century  it 
was  generally  adopted  throughout  England.  Another  Norfolk 
farmer.  Coke  of  Holkham,  Earl  of  Leicester,  introduced  the  use 
of  oil  cake  and  bone  fertilizer  and  experimented  with  the  food 
values  of  various  grasses. 

SCIENTIFIC  FARMING 

There  was  more  of  the  scientific  element  in  this  new  type  of 
agriculture  than  the  foregoing  account  may  have  suggested  and 
almost  as  much  of  the  Industrial  Revolution  behind  the  plow  as 
in  the  machine  that  was  to  come.  Tull  published  the  results  of 
his  experiments  with  foreign  grasses  and  the  growth  of  plants. 
Agricultural  societies  arose  and  their  proceedings,  which  involved 
reports  of  experiments  in  land  cultivation,  crop  rotation,  and  the 
selective  principles  of  husbandry,  were  published  regularly.  The 
various  aspects  of  agriculture  kept  issuing  from  the  press  with 
unusual  regularity.  In  addition  to  the  interest  in  the  soil,  there 
was  an  incentive  toward  improving  the  breed  of  cattle  upon  a 
thousand  hills.  The  most  famous  of  the  scientific  breeders  of 
cattle  was  Bakewell  (1725-1794),  who  developed  the  famous  breed 
of  Leicestershire  sheep.  It  is  said  that  people  flocked  from  various 
parts  of  the  world  to  see  his  famous  stock,  especially  his  bull 
"  Two  Penny  "  and  his  ram  "  Two  Pounder."  In  his  very  kitchen^ 
he  entertained  none  other  than  Russian  princes,  French  and  Ger- 


THE  ENCLOSED  FARM  429 

man  dukes,  British  peers,  and,  besides,  all  sorts  of  sight-seers. 
BakewelTs  extraordinary  achievements  in  this  line  were  rivaled 
by  those  of  other  successful  experimenters  in  England  and  Scot- 
land, but  all  of  these  applied  the  principles  of  scientific  breeding 
that  Bakewell  himself  had  discovered. 

What  had  been  achieved  in  a  relatively  short  space  of  time  may 
be  observed  when  we  note  that  in  1700  cattle  weighed  about  370 
pounds,  sheep  about  28  pounds.  But  by  the  year  1800,  if  we 
desire  to  mark  the  flight  of  a  century  upon  such  a  practical  basis, 
the  avoirdupois  of  cattle  had  advanced  to  800  pounds  while  the 
flight  of  time  was  marked  by  the  fact  that  the  new  sheep  tipped 
the  beam  at  80  and  100  pounds.  Was  there  a  parallel  improve- 
ment in  the  breed  of  men  ?  All  of  these  improvements  in  stock 
breeding  had  been  made,  moreover,  on  enclosed  farms  of  moder- 
ate size,  or  the  landed  estates  of  the  gentry.  The  promiscuous 
breeding  of  undersized  or  diseased  stock  could  not  be  abolished 
while  the  live  stock  had  the  freedom  of  the  common  lands. 
Consequently  the  various  Enclosure  Acts  and  other  like  measures 
proved  beneficial  from  the  standpoint  of  both  cattle  breeding  and 
agriculture.  Because  of  the  importance  of  these  land  enclosures, 
we  must  observe,  although  briefly,  what  such  measures  really 
signified. 

THE  ENCLOSED  FARM 

Until  the  latter  half  of  the  XVIIIth  century,  a  large  proportion 
of  the  land  in  England  consisted  of  great  common  lands  composed 
of  waste,  pasture,  and  arable  soil.  The  cultivated  land  was  still 
operated  under  the  mediaeval  system  of  three-field  agriculture; 
that  is,  the  available  land  of  a  village  was  divided  into  three 
broad  strips  which  were  subdivided  into  further  strips  about  three 
rods  in  width.  On  this  basis,  farmers  would  work  two  pieces  of 
land  in  each  field;  one  of  the  three  strips  would  be  left  fal- 
low each  year  only  to  become  the  garden  of  all  sorts  of  ruinous 
weeds.  The  more  progressive  farmer  could  do  no  better  than 
follow  the  traditional  example  of  his  near-by  neighbor.  Conse- 
quently the  land  knew  nothing  better  than  wheat  with  an  occa- 
sional variation  of  oats  and  barley;  a  few  minor  crops  of  other 
produce  might  be  introduced,  but  the  staples  predominated. 


430     THE  INDUSTRIAL  FORM  OF  CIVILIZATION 

How  did  such  feudal  farming  satisfy  the  growing  needs  of  the 
population? 

To  a  certain  extent  the  archaic  system  of  agriculture  was  satis- 
factory; it  offered  the  materials  of  food  and  fuel,  clothing  and 
housing.  Then,  in  conjunction  with  the  profits  of  home  manu- 
facture, carried  on  during  the  off-farming  season,  the  population 
enjoyed  a  certain  degree  of  economic  independence.  The  village 
was  more  or  less  sufficient  unto  itself.  But  when  trade  and  com- 
merce began  to  feel  the  impact  of  the  Industrial  Revolution,  when 
cities  grew  up  and  the  population  increased,  the  effect  was  felt  in 
the  soil.  The  ancient  system  of  land  tenure  and  the  primitive 
method  of  agriculture  were  bound  to  feel  the  change.  The  effect 
of  this  was  indicated  in  connection  with  wealth.  Formerly  wealth 
had  been  measured  in  terms  of  land,  but  now  it  began  to  assume 
the  form  of  commodities,  for  gold  was  beginning  to  run  in 
the  channels  of  manufacture  and  commerce.  Hence  it  was  that 
progressive  farmers  and  great  landed  proprietors  insisted  that 
agriculture  should  not  lag  behind  but  rather  join  in  the  general 
march  toward  prosperity.  A  more  systematized  and  scientific 
farming  would  produce  larger  crops,  and  hence  reap  more 
profits.  The  old-fashioned  feudal  system  of  open  land  was 
wasteful,  inefficient,  and  unsatisfactory. 

The  demand  for  better  farms,  as  we  might  style  it,  crystallized 
in  a  modern  form.  The  feudal  system  of  land  tenure  had  to  be 
changed  and  the  open  field  abolished  for  the  sake  of  installing  the 
general  enclosure  of  the  common  lands.  The  argument  that  the 
waste  lands  made  it  possible  for  many  small  cottagers  and  laborers 
to  keep  their  geese  and  goats,  donkeys  and  cows  at  little  or  no 
expense  was  offset  by  the  contention  that  the  lands  were  over- 
crowded and  as  often  as  not  good  lands  were  allowed  to  remain 
idle.  In  the  light  of  new  conditions,  the  old  system  looked  in- 
tolerable and  quite  out  of  date.  It  had  bred  dissension,  litigation, 
and  inefficiency  of  the  worst  sort.  Little  thought  had  been  given 
to  adapting  the  land  to  its  proper  uses  or  of  utilizing  it  for  dairy 
produce  and  garden  truck;  and  this  was  especially  the  case  when 
the  land  in  question  adjoined  the  rapidly  growing  towns.  The 
changing  state  of  affairs  led  thus  to  a  change  from  the  old  system 
of  common,  open  land  to  the  new  policy  of  enclosures. 


ENCLOSURE  ACTS 


ENCLOSURE  ACTS 


431 


The  progressive  agriculturists  o£  the  day,  in  supporting  their 
claims,  pointed  to  the  enclosed  farms  as  the  only  ones  that  demon- 
strated the  productive  efficiency  of  the  new  methods  in  agriculture. 
In  like  manner,  they  contended  that  it  was  only  the  farmers  with 
capital  and  large  farms  who  were  able  to  make  farming  a  financial 
success.  The  cumulative  effect  of  these  contentions  was  such  as 
to  create  a  general  demand  for  enclosures.  Early  enclosures  had 
been  made  under  the  statutes  of  Merton  (1235)  and  Westminster 
(1285).  These  enclosures  added  to  the  lands  of  the  lord  of  the 
manor,  although  sufficient  pasturage  was  left  for  the  commoner's 
use.  In  the  XVth  century,  other  enclosures  were  made  by  various 
acts.  By  the  XVIIIth  century,  however,  the  pressing  necessities 
of  the  time  were  such  as  to  demand  a  much  more  general  applica- 
tion of  the  method  and  the  abolition  of  the  wasteful  feudal  system. 
A  tentative  method  of  enclosure  had  been  adopted  when  a  certain 
group  of  farmers  agreed  among  themselves  to  enclose  their  lands, 
but  this  impromptu  method  proved  impractical  because  the  neces- 
sary negotiations  were  long  drawn  out  by  haggling  over  details. 
Something  more  systematic  had  to  be  done. 

A  new  stage  in  the  new  system  of  land  tenure  was  reached  when 
appeal  was  made  to  Parliament.  A  long  series  of  private  acts 
during  Queen  Anne's  reign  and  many  more  under  the  Georges 
had  served  to  advance  the  new  system  of  enclosures.  In  many 
cases  these  private  acts  were  highly  expensive  to  those  interested 
in  having  them  passed,  and  no  wonder  those  interested  were  galled 
by  the  slow  and  heavy  methods  of  parliamentary  procedure.  But 
when  the  tedious  movement  had  at  last  gained  headway,  and 
those  in  authority  had  been  led  to  observe  its  urgent  necessity, 
Parliament  responded  with  the  General  Enclosure  Act  of  1801. 
Yet  it  was  not  until  1845,  when  Parliament  appointed  a  body  of 
commissioners  to  execute  the  task,  that  the  system  of  enclosures 
was  carried  out  with  any  degree  of  speed  and  satisfaction.  Then 
the  farm  became  a  "  plant  "'in  the  modern  sense  of  that  term. 

Such  an  industrial  movement  as  that  of  enclosure  was  bound  to 
work  great  hardship  eimong  the  poorer  farmers,  rural  laborers, 
and  village  cottagers.'  Some  of  the  moving  spirits  of  the  En- 


432     THE  INDUSTRIAL  FORM  OF  CIVILIZATION 

closure  Acts,  the  lords  of  manors  and  institutions  which  received 
titles,  were  none  too  solicitous  of  the  rights  of  those  who  were 
cast  aside  when  the  enclosures  were  made.  Greed,  fraud,  and  cor- 
ruption, aye,  all  means  worthy  or  disreputable,  were  employed  to 
complete  the  designs  of  those  who,  with  the  apparent  motive  of 
superior  methods  in  agriculture,  sought  to  secure  title  to  land. 
And  the  effects  of  these  injustices  are  to  be  noted  in  the  landed 
system  of  England  today.  All  manner  of  evils  have  been  at- 
tributed to  the  Enclosure  Acts,  particularly  that  of  rural  depopula- 
tion. It  is  difficult,  however,  to  substantiate  such  a  contention, 
since  it  was  doubdess  the  attraction  of  high  wages  in  the  new 
urban  industries  and  the  appeal  that  the  city  made  to  the  more 
enterprising  villagers  that  had  to  do  with  the  drift  from  rural  fields 
to  urban  centers.  The  farming  business  as  such  began  to  assume 
the  capitalistic  form  as  both  farm  and  market  changed.  During 
the  Napoleonic  wars,  there  was  profit  in  agriculture,  but  when 
this  modern  warrior  had  been  forced  to  desist  in  his  particular 
kind  of  reaping  and  the  soldiers  who  opposed  him  returned  to 
the  soil,  deflation  set  in,  causing  the  weaker  planter  to  sell  his 
little  holdings  that  once  had  loomed  so  large  to  the  great  land- 
owner. The  result  was  a  class  division  which  was  soon  to  show 
itself  more  ostensibly  in  the  domain  of  manufacture  —  the  sharp 
and  severe  division  of  rich  and  poor,  of  those  who  have  and  those 
who  have  not. 

MAN  AND  MACHINE 

But  the  revolution  in  agricultural  method  was  not  a  circum- 
stance in  comparison  with  the  change  in  the  mode  of  manufacture. 
The  old  farm  in  its  new  form  was  in  no  sense  so  spectacular  or 
influential  as  the  new  engine.  So  striking  is  the  effect  of  steam 
when  compared  with  the  slow  work  of  the  soil  that  we  can 
hardly  help  identifying  the  Industrial  Revolution  with  the  intro- 
duction of  the  steam  engine.  Nevertheless,  the  change  in  the 
method  of  manufacture  began  to  be  made  while  manual  labor  was 
still  the  modus  oferandi.  The  new  movement  was  inaugurated 
by  the  application  of  invention  to  spinning  and  weaving.  The 
loom  anticipated  the  steam  engine.  Now,  spinning  and  weaving 
are  arts  which  trace  back  to  pre-historic  times  and  are  about  as 


LOOMS  NEW  AND  OLD  433 

universal  as  the  spread  of  the  human  race  itself.    Due  to  the 
nature  of  the  fabrics  made,  there  are  but  few  examples  of  this 
primitive  handicraft,  yet  they  do  not  fail  to  show  that  the  art  of 
loom,  spindle,  and  needle  was  thoroughly  understood.    Various 
knitted  and  netted  fabrics  as  well  as  woven  linen  cloth  have  been 
recovered  from  clay  beds  where  the  Swiss  lake-dwellers  made 
their  home  in  Neolithic  times.    Then,  some  fragments  of  wooden 
wheels,  spindle  whorls,  and  loom  weights  made  of  stone  and 
earthenware  have  been  recovered  from  the  same  beds.    Other 
examples  of  the  weaver's  art  have  been  found  in  Egypt,  Baby- 
lonia, Persia,  Greece,  China,  and  Japan  as  well  as  other  parts  of 
the  world.    And  here  is  the  remarkable  fact  —  that  the  essential 
principles  of  spinning  and  weaving  do  not  appear  to  have  under- 
gone fundamental  change  from  pre-historic  days  to  recent  times. 
Weaving  as  a  handicraft  reached  its  highest  point  of  perfection 
in  Europe  during  the  early  part  of  the  XVIIIth  century,  especially 
in  France,  England,  and  Italy.    The  social  and  economic  status 
of  the  textile  craftsman  was  higher  during  this  period,  particularly 
in  England,  than  at  any  other  time  in  the  history  of  the  craft. 
More  often  than  not,  he  was  a  prosperous  and  highly  respected 
tradesman  whether  he  worked  his  trade  in  some  obscure  village 
or  in  one  of  the  suburbs  of  the  great  towns.    Due  to  economic 
causes,  this  prosperous  craftsman  of  the  XVIIIth  century  fell  into 
a  condition  of  extreme  distress  when  the  XlXth  century  had 
arrived.   The  plight  into  which  this  typical  craftsman  was  plunged 
is  illustrative  of  one  unhappy  change  which  the  Industrial  Revo- 
lution was  to  effect.    The  source  of  the  situation  is  to  be  found  in 
invention. 

LOOMS  NEW  AND  OLD 

The  chief  concern  of  the  inventor  had  been  to  enhance  the 
perfection  of  the  loom  as  a  pattern-weaving  tool.  But  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  XVIIIth  century  a  new  motive  invaded  the  mind  of 
the  inventor  who  sought  to  shorten  the  time  of  the  operation  and 
cheapen  the  cost  of  production  rather  than;  contribute  to  the  fine- 
ness of  the  product.  Hence,  instead  of  having  the  weaver  follow 
the  design  throughout  the  various  stages  of  its  development,  the 
one-time  weaver  performed  inertly  one  part  of  the  complete 

S.T.—20 


434     THE  INDUSTRIAL  FORM  OF  CIVILIZATION 

operation.  The  artisan  thus  became  a  "  hand."  With  the  change 
from  wooden  to  iron  looms  and  the  application  of  steam  power, 
there  arose  the  extreme  division  of  labor  and  the  mechanizing 
and  socializing  of  a  former  handicraft.  The  revolution  of  the 
weaving  industry  did  not  take  place  in  a  trice,  but  required  some 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years  for  its  consummation.  The  earliest 
indication  of  coming  changes  in  broad  weaving  was  observed  in 
1687,  when  Joseph  Mason  patented  a  machine  duly  described  by 
him  as  "  an  engine  by  the  help  of  which  a  weaver  may  perform 
the  whole  work  of  weaving  .  .  .  without  the  help  of  a  draught 
boy,  which  engine  hath  been  tried  and  found  to  be  of  great  use  to 
the  said  weaving  trade." 

The  honor  of  devising  a  means  to  overcome,  if  only  in  a  partial 
manner,  the  driving  and  catching  of  the  shuttle  in  the  weaving 
of  broad  webs  by  power  is  given  to  John  Kay,  who,  in  1733,  in- 
vented a  "  flying  shuttle "  which  could  be  thrown  mechanically 
from  one  side  of  the  loom  to  the  other.  Kay  intended  this 
invention  for  the  hand  loom,  but  it  proved  practicable  for  the 
power  loom  also.  In  1786  a  much  superior  power  loom  was  pro- 
duced by  Dr.  Edmund  Cartwright.  As  far  as  the  number  of 
these  new  machines  is  concerned,  it  is  estimated  that  by  the  close 
of  the  XVIIIth  century  there  were  20  thousand  power  looms  and 
250  thousand  hand  looms  in  Great  Britain.  Of  course,  the  arts 
of  spinning  and  weaving  reacted  upon  each  other.  When  Kay's 
flying  shuttle  came  into  general  use,  the  weavers  were  often  com- 
pelled to  wait  until  the  spinners  had  provided  them  with  sufficient 
yarn  for  the  loom,  whereas  in  the  days  of  the  hand  loom  the  supply 
of  yarn  was  in  the  excess.  It  was  the  swifter,  larger  power  loom 
which  used  the  yarn  in  such  quantities  as  to  cause  spinner  and 
weaver  to  proceed  side  by  side. 

The  revolution  in  the  spinning  industry  was  due  to  an  invention 
of  Hargreaves,  who  in  1764  invented  a  wheel  capable  of  turning 
sixteen  spindles.  This  machine  he  named  a  "  Spinning  Jenny," 
in  honor  of  his  wife.  In  1769  Arkwright  introduced  his  method 
of  spinning  by  rollers  through  water  power.  Then  came  Cromp- 
ton  with  his  "  mule,"  which  combined  the  essential  features  of  the 
two  former  methods.  As  a  consequence  of  these  new  appliances, 
one  person  could  supervise  hundreds  of  spindles.  These  machines 


STEAM  435 

were  of  tremendous  importance  for  civilization,  yet  the  men  who 
invented  them  were  not  Galileos  and  Newtons,  but  humble  in- 
dividuals who  seemed  to  act  for  the  great  mass  of  mankind.  They 
rejoiced  in  little  technical  education  and  had  Htde  capital  but  they 
were  infinitely  patient  and  practical.  They  gave  impetus,  how- 
ever, to  scientific  research,  and  in  time  the  textile  industry 
branched  out  into  bleaching,  dyeing,  and  printing  and  gave  Eng- 
land its  supremacy  in  textile  manufacture. 

STEAM 

The  improvements  in  the  methods  of  spinning  and  weaving 
would  have  made  but  a  small  chapter  in  the  story  of  the  Industrial 
Revolution  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  contributions  of  inventors 
working  in  totally  dissimilar  spheres.  Mass  production,  one  of 
the  marked  features  of  the  new  movement,  necessitated  the  ap- 
plication of  unlimited  power  to  the  new  machinery.  Earlier 
forms  of  power,  such  as  hand  and  horse,  wind  and  water  power, 
were  of  no  avail  for  the  industrial  demands  of  the  new  age.  More 
than  one  man  had  been  experimenting  with  steam  power  and  a 
number  of  rude  engines  had  been  produced.  But  it  was  left  to 
Watt  to  improve  upon  a  former  model  and  thus  produce  a  steam 
engine  for  pumping,  hauling,  and  driving.  This  machine  was  con- 
structed at  first  for  vertical  motion  and  was  used  chiefly  for  draw- 
ing water.  But  it  was  not  long  before  there  dawned  the  idea 
of  the  adaptation  of  it  to  rotary  and  parallel  motion,  which  made 
possible  the  use  of  steam  power  for  machinery  used  in  manu- 
facture. 

While  spectacular  movements  were  taking  place  in  Europe,  a 
more  happy  and  fruitful  development  was  being  engendered  and 
peace  was  competing  with  war  for  the  attention  of  mankind.  In 
1812,  while  Napoleon  was  on  the  Russian  campaign,  a  much  more 
significant  event  than  his  march  was  taking  place,  for  the  Comet, 
the  new  steamboat,  was  proceeding  down  the  river  Clyde  under 
her  own  power.  Two  years  after  this  semi-conspicuous  occur- 
rence, Stephenson  invented  the  first  locomotive  engine.  And 
when  the  modern  Mars  reached  the  climax  of  his  spectacular 
career  a£  Waterloo,  in  1815,  Humphry  Davy  invented  the  safety 


436     THE  INDUSTRIAL  FORM  OF  CIVILIZATION 

lamp  for  the  use  of  miners,  whose  subterranean  labors  had  become 
necessary  in  connection  with  the  problem  of  fuel  for  steam  en- 
gines. All  the  inventive  activity  with  its  application  to  trades  old 
and  new  demanded  increased  production  of  coal  and  iron  and 
thus  there  arose  great  metal  and  mining  industries  whose  only 
rivals  were  in  the  domain  of  the  textiles.  The  Industrial  Revo- 
lution, which  had  started  in  the  soil,  was  now  boring  its  way  deep 
down  into  the  solid  earth. 

Many  of  these  ironworks  were  built  around  some  single  indi- 
vidual whose  foresight  and  enterprise  had  made  them  possible, 
just  as  in  the  case  of  the  textile  trades.  Such  an  individual  was 
**  Mad  Iron  "  Wilkinson  of  Bushham,  whose  ironworks  were  busy 
boring  cannon  for  both  English  and  French  artillery,  construct- 
ing iron  bridges,  and  making  iron  piping  for  the  new  Paris 
waterworks  scheme.  The  development  of  this  industry  is  a  strik- 
ing illustration  of  the  rapid  strides  the  inventors  were  making  in 
the  iron  industry,  but  not  in  that  alone.  Arnold  Toynbee  states 
that  in  1737  "  fifty  mine  furnaces  in  eighteen  different  counties 
produced  17,350  tons  annually.  It  has  been  computed,"  he  adds, 
"  that  we  imported  20,000  tons.  In  1881,  we  exported  3,820,315 
tons  of  iron  and  steel  valued  at  27,590,908  pounds  and  imported 
to  the  value  of  3,705,332  pounds."  2 

COAL  AND  IRON 

As  to  fuel,  charcoal  had  long  been  used  in  the  smelting  of  iron 
and  steel,  but  by  the  close  of  the  XVIIth  century,  in  England, 
timber  for  charcoal  was  becoming  scarce.  By  1740  coke  was  in- 
troduced, with  the  effect  of  reviving  a  languishing  iron  industry. 
After  1619,  coal  and  coke  for  smelting  iron  had  been  experimented 
with,  particularly  by  an  English  ironmaster  named  Dudley.  But 
it  was  not  until  Darby,  another  ironmaster,  won  success  in  1730 
that  the  iron  industry  as  we  know  it  today  was  fairly  started  on 
its  road.  In  1756,  Darby  declared  that  his  furnace,  "  at  the  very 
top  pinnacle  of  prosperity,"  was  producing  twenty-two  tons  a  week. 
But  by  1760  his  Coalbrookdale  furnace  had  managed  to  produce 
forty  tons  of  pig  iron  in  a  week. 

2  The  Industrial  Revolution  of  the  Eighteenth  Century,  p.  26. 


GREEK  SMITHY,  PAINTED  ON  A 
GRECIAN  VASE 


(facing  page  437) 


Hiving  Galloway,  N<  F, 
MODERN  AMERICAN  STEEL  MILLS 


STEEL  437 

As  to  the  metal  itself,  we  must  not  fail  to  observe  that  Henry 
Cort  devised  new  methods  of  rolling  and  puddling  iron,  which 
gave  such  an  impetus  to  the  industry  that,  by  the  close  of  the 
XVIIIth  century,  various  districts  of  England  saw  the  rise  of  great 
furnaces  belching  their  volume  of  smoke  and  making  the  night 
glow  with  the  lurid  glare  of  their  huge  fires.  When  Henry  Cort 
and  Peter  Onions  in  1783  devised  a  process  of  puddling  whereby 
carbon  could  be  burned  out  of  the  pig  iron,  a  malleable  iron  was 
produced  and  became  adaptable  to  a  variety  of  uses.  But  per- 
fection in  this  industry  had  not  yet  been  realized,  so  that  iron 
was  not  available  for  the  purposes  to  which  the  XlXth  cen- 
tury was  to  put  it.  As  Thornctike  says,  "  The  iron  industry  be- 
came the  steel  industry  after  the  English  inventor  Bessemer,  in 
trying  to  improve  the  metal  employed  in  artillery,  purified  iron 
by  forcing  a  blast  of  air  through  it  while  in  a  molten  state  and  at 
an  extreme  heat." 3  It  was  thus  that  the  iron  was  cleansed  of 
additional  carbon  and  slag.  While  Bessemer  announced  his  in- 
vention in  1856,  it  was  not  until  some  time  later  that  his  ex- 
traordinary process  was  generally  accepted.  In  1864,  the  Martin 
Brothers  of  Sireuil,  France,  developed  the  open-hearth  process  of 
making  steel,  but  up  to  this  time  no  process  could  eliminate  from 
the  iron  or  steel  the  ever-present  phosphorus  in  iron  ores.  It 
was  in  1878  that  S.  G.  Thomas  introduced  a  method  which  solved 
this  troublesome  problem. 

STEEL 

Steel!  All  these  discoveries  and  the  adoption  of  new  methods 
have  made  possible  the  use  of  steel  for  rails,  rolling  stock  of  rail- 
roads, steamships,  skyscraper  edifices,  bridges,  subways,  automo- 
biles —  an  alarming  list,  a  bewildering  array  of  things  that  have 
come  out  of  the  steel  age.  There  has  been  no  Midas  whose  touch 
turned  everything  to  gold,  but  the  touch  of  the  common  man, 
represented  by  his  scientific  advocate,  has  turned  almost  every- 
thing to  steel.  How  can  one  compress  upon  a  page,  compass  in 
a  chapter,  or  even  express  in  a  volume  the  well-known  story  of 
steel?  It  forms  the  skeleton  of  modern  civilization  and  the  sinews 
8  A  Short  History  o]  Civilization,  p,  487. 


438     THE  INDUSTRIAL  FORM  OF  CIVILIZATION 

of  war;  its  ring  is  heard  everywhere  in  the  harsh  music  of  the 
XXth  century. 

At  the  same  time,  we  must  not  fail  to  make  mention  of  the  more 
tender  development  of  industry  in  connection  with  the  primitive 
art  of  pottery.  Wedgwood  was  preeminent  among  all  the  potters 
of  western  Europe  who  were  experimenting  with  clay  and  the 
colors  and  designs  it  could  be  made  to  assume.  He  succeeded 
in  producing  a  ware  which  was  white  throughout  in  contrast  to 
the  red  or  buff  clays  which  had  formerly  been  used.  This  dis- 
covery made  English  ware  the  most  popular  in  Europe.  Although 
Wedgwood  started  with  the  small  sum  of  twenty  pounds,  a  legacy 
left  to  him,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  put  back  into  hi£  small  concern 
every  penny  he  could  save  and  thus  he  extended  his  enterprise 
until  he  left  it  one  of  the  largest  of  its  kind  in  the  world,  with  no 
diminished  prestige  even  to  this  day  of  rapid  advancement  in 
industries. 

But  the  Industrial  Revolution  looms  up  in  our  minds  as  some- 
thing more  spectacular  than  anything  that  agriculture  and  manu- 
facture can  suggest.  It  means  transportation.  How  was  the  new 
age,  the  machine  age,  to  arrange  for  exchange  of  goods  and  public 
travel?  Canals,  either  invented  by  the  Chinese  or  early  adopted 
by  them,  seemed  to  hold  out  promises  which  to  us  seem  ridiculous 
when  we  think  of  the  improvised  canals  our  airplanes  make  in  the 
very  air.  But  such  artificial  rivers  were  of  value  in  the  earlier 
stages  of  industry.  They  were  introduced  into  England  in  1759 
and  some  of  these,  like  that  of  the  Duke  of  Bridgewater,  enabled 
the  householder  to  procure  his  coal  at  half  its  former  price.  By 
the  close  of  the  XVIIIth  century,  London  and  Bristol,  Liverpool 
and  Hull  had  each  its  canal  system. 

THE  RAILROAD 

During  the  early  part  of  the  XVIIIth  century,  roads  in  Great 
Britain,  as  in  most  other  European  countries,  were  in  a  deplorable 
condition.  When  a  wet  summer  was  added  to  a  wet  winter,  the 
roads  became  impassable  for  wheeled  traffic.  At  the  close  of  the 
century,  however,  great  improvements  were  introduced,  the  most 
notable  being  that  of  McAdam,  who  in  1811  reported  to  Parlia- 


THE  RAILROAD  439 

ment  concerning  his  new  method  of  road  making.  While  the 
stage  coach  had  been  on  the  road  as  early  as  1640,  it  was  not  until 
1784  that  mail  coaches,  later  made  romantic  by  Thomas  De 
Quincey,  were  introduced  by  Palmer,  the  Pullman  of  those  early 
days.  In  1814  Stephenson  invented  his  locomotive  engine  for 
transporting  freight,  especially  coal  —  a  "freighter"  that  made 
its  trip  from  the  coal  mines  to  the  cities  at  the  rate  of  three  miles 
per  hour!  The  history  of  the  English  railway  was  almost  as  pro- 
tracted as  the  journey  of  Ulysses. 

In  1818,  Parliament  refused  to  sanction  a  plan  for  the  extension 
of  railroad  lines,  partly  because  the  noise  of  the  iron  horse  would 
scare  the  foxes  in  their  coverts.  Three  years  later,  however,  the 
Stockton  and  Darlington  line  was  authorized  for  freight  carriage. 
Yet  the  railroads  did  not  take  firm  hold  upon  the  public  imagina- 
tion until  the  Liverpool  and  Manchester  Railroad  was  opened, 
shortly  after  Stephenson's  Rocket  had  won  the  prize  in  competi- 
tion with  three  other  competing  locomotives  of  different  types. 
The  proud  winner  in  this  test  finished  in  a  burst  of  speed  of  ap- 
proximately thirty  miles  per  hour.  In  1830,  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton was  present  at  the  opening  of  the  line  and  a  new  era  began. 
But  it  was  not  until  1844  ^^  a  general  railroad-construction 
movement  was  inaugurated,  although  by  1850  almost  all  the  well- 
known  railroad  systems  of  England  had  been  established. 

The  year  1845  has  been  called  the  year  of  the  "  railroad  mania." 
The  new  mode  of  transportation  had  conquered  space  and 
captured  the  popular  imagination.  For  some  time  previous  to 
this,  people  had  enjoyed  a  considerable  measure  of  commercial 
prosperity  and  the  accumulated  capital  was  seeking  new  outlets 
into  the  depths  of  investment.  These  new  speculators  had  not 
far  to  look  since  the  phenomenal  success  of  the  railroad  seemed  to 
conjure  up  visions  of  profits  wider  and  brighter  than  anything  the 
world  had  known  before.  Here  was  an  Eldorado  of  steel  inviting 
the  eye  and  tempting  the  purse.  Hence  new  railroad  companies 
sprang  up,  their  stocks  were  issued  and  soon  began  to  soar.  As 
Edward  P.  Cheney  says,  "All  classes  were  caught  in  a  wild 
speculation  which  reached  to  every  other  form  of  finance  and 
industry.  A  frenzy  seized  the  stock  markets  and  thousands  of 
men  removed  their  savings  from  other  places,  but  bound  them- 


440    THE  INDUSTRIAL  FORM  OF  CIVILIZATION 

selves  to  payments  far  beyond  any  funds  in  their  actual  control. 
Men  grew  rich  over  night  by  the  rise  of  the  price  of  shares  they 
had  not  yet  paid  for  in  companies  whose  rights  of  way  were  not 
yet  surveyed." 4 

A  recent  experience  of  a  similar  character  in  our  own  country 
gives  us  to  understand  how  the  British  populace  of  nearly  a  cen- 
tury ago  was  drawn  into  the  whirlpool  of  speculation.  In  the 
latter  months  of  1845,  the  flood  subsided  and  left  its  victims 
stranded.  Thousands  of  families  were  hopelessly  ruined  and  such 
things  as  prosecutions,  flights  from  justice,  imprisonments,  and 
suicides  were  quite  the  order  of  the  day.  Out  of  this  chaos,  as  a 
voice  crying  from  the  depths,  arose  the  demand  for  parliamentary 
control  and  regulation  of  railroads.  But  the  natural  disinclination 
df  Englishmen  for  excess  of  government  did  not  fail  to  assert  itself, 
so  that  little  by  way  of  control  was  done.  From  that  day  to  this, 
British  railroad  systems  have  felt  little  governmental  influence  in 
either  development  or  management,  for  the  government  has  done 
little  more  than  emphasize  the  obvious:  that  the  railroads  should 
serve  public  interest  and  have  an  eye  to  its  welfare. 

THE  STEAMBOAT 

While  steamship  development  was  under  way  before  railroad 
activity  became  so  marked,  the  paddle  wheel  did  not  keep  pace 
with  the  driving  wheel.  In  1787,  John  Fitch  ran  his  steamboat  on 
the  Delaware  but  could  not  make  the  venture  pay.  But  what 
Fitch  foiled  to  achieve  on  the  Delaware,  Fulton  with  his  Cler- 
mont  accomplished  in  1807  on  the  Hudson.  As  we  have  observed, 
Bell's  Comet  had  steamed  down  the  river  Clyde  in  1812.  The 
Atlantic  Ocean  was  crossed  in  1838  by  the  Great  Western,  which 
made  the  trip  in  fifteen  days  at  an  average  speed  of  some  eight 
knots.  Within  two  years  of  this  time,  the  Royal  Mail  Steam 
Packet,  the  Peninsula  and  Oriental,  and  the  Cunard  Company 
were  off  to  a  successful  start.  The  improvements  made  in  the 
facilities  for  transportation  from  the  beginning  of  the  XlXth 
century  to  the  present  time  make  it  possible  for  us  to  reach  prac- 
tically any  part  of  the  globe  with  more  ease  and  speed  than  were 

*  Industrial  and  Social  History  of  England,  rev.  ed,  p.  213. 


THE  STEAMBOAT 

available  to  a  European  in  his  endeavor  to  reach  the  parts  o£  his 
own  little  continent.  At  the  time  of  the  American  Revolution,  it 
required  six  weeks  to  reach  our  shores  from  England,  while  the 
same  trip  is  now  made  in  less  than  as  many  days.  In  1804,  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  had  to  spend  six  months  to  return  to  Eng- 
land from  India,  while  at  the  present  time  the  same  journey  re- 
quires only  thirteen  days.  One  has  only  to  recall  the  experience 
of  his  grandparents  in  making  their  tedious  journey  westward  to 
realize  what  has  been  accomplished  since  the  days  of  the  covered 
wagon,  for  now  the  same  journey  can  be  made  within  a  week 
by  automobile.  But  it  is  unnecessary  to  multiply  illustrations  of 
this  sort.  We  feel  the  speed  of  the  age  and  accept  the  benefits  of 
industrial  civilization  with  the  egoistic  complacency  of  a  youth 
who  has  fallen  heir  to  the  family  fortune. 

As  far  as  we  have  gone  into  the  history  of  modern  industry,  we 
have  confined  our  attention  to  England,  for  it  was  there  that  the 
Industrial  Revolution  first  indicated  its  character.  It  was  in  Eng- 
land, too,  that  the  new  movement  assumed  significant  proportion 
before  it  began  to  repeat  itself  in  other  lands.  But  such  a  prac- 
tical movement  was  bound  to  spread,  for  industry  is  not  like  art 
and  does  not  require  the  special  talent  and  taste  which  make  one 
nation  more  aesthetic  than  another.  England  did  attempt  to 
enclose  the  industries  it  had  brought  forth,  but  the  restrictions  it 
employed  were  of  little  avail.  The  British  government  enacted 
legislation  meant  to  keep  the  inventions,  discoveries,  and  indus- 
tries within  its  own  borders,  just  as  though  such  gigantic  things 
were  only  trade  secrets;  but  enterprising  English  workmen,  who 
passed  over  to  the  Continent  as  also  to  America,  refreshed  their 
memories  of  the  machines  they  had  worked  with  at  home  and 
reproduced  them  in  other  places.  This  was  hardly  the  cause  of  the 
new  industrialism  in  extra-English  countries,  but  it  was  one  of  the 
contributory  factors. 

THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  ON  THE  CONTINENT 

In  France,  the  influence  of  the  French  Revolution  and  the  re- 
forms instituted  under  the  Napoleonic  regime  tended  to  abolish 
the  restrictions  that  the  mediaeval  guild  system  had  imposed  upon 


442    THE  INDUSTRIAL  FORM  OF  CIVILIZATION 

industry.  But  more  direct  and  significant  was  the  new  spirit 
abroad  in  the  land,  which  encouraged  initiative  along  various  lines 
of  industrial  development.  During  the  reigns  of  Louis  Philippe 
and  Napoleon  III,  fame  if  not  fortune  came  to  French  industries, 
especially  in  the  manufacture  of  women's  wear,  as  silks,  velvets, 
and  other  sorts  of  dress  goods,  to  say  nothing  of  perfumes  and 
other  accessories  of  milady's  boudoir.  Yet  in  comparison  with 
the  sturdy  growth  of  English  industry  that  of  France  was  puny 
and  slow.  The  reasons  for  this  are  not  far  to  seek. 

At  the  time  of  the  Industrial  Revolution,  France  was  pre- 
dominantly an  agricultural  country,  where  the  majority  of  the 
population  lived  on  the  land  in  villages  and  small  towns  and 
where  there  were  no  general,  large  landholdings  comparable 
to  those  in  England.  From  the  standpoint  of  foodstuffs,  France 
was  practically  independent  of  imports  and,  being  able  to  feed 
themselves,  the  French  were  not  greatly  concerned  about  com- 
mercial expansion.  Then  the  slight  increase  in  population 
whereby  there  were  not  so  many  new  mouths  to  feed  delivered 
France  from  the  necessity  o£  solving  the  food  problem,  which  in 
other  lands  was  more  acute.  In  short,  the  French  people  were 
quite  independent  and  reasonably  contented.  The  soil  was  rich 
and  fruitful,  the  climate  congenial,  so  that  the  inhabitants  of 
la  belle  France  had  no  marked  yearning  after  the  life  of  the 
congested  and  smoke-swept  cities  of  England. 

In  addition  to  such  passive  resistance  to  the  Industrial  Revolu- 
tion, the  mind  of  France  was  taken  up  with  its  political  problems. 
The  old  order  had  been  destroyed  and  a  new  form  of  government 
installed.  And  then  —  Napoleon!  France  had  to  expend  its 
energies  in  conflict  and  had  little  strength  left  for  commerce. 
There  was  also  a  scarcity  of  raw  materials  and  labor  supply,  a 
limited  market  and  an  unwise  tariff.  France  was  more  con- 
cerned with  decking  out  its  soldiers  in  color  than  in  conducting 
a  more  useful  form  of  clothing  industry.  The  engines  of  war 
were  more  in  evidence  than  the  machinery  of  peace  and,  al- 
though France  did  have  machinery  before  1815,  it  is  difficult  to 
determine  the  number  of  these  new  contrivances  or  the  extent 
of  their  use.  Water  power  was  plentiful,  accessible,  and  easily 
adapted  to  the  purposes  of  manufacture;  hence  there  could  be 


REVOLUTION  ON  THE  CONTINENT         443 

no  pressing  demand  for  steam.  France  was  addicted  to  the  hand 
loom  and,  in  certain  types  of  textile  manufacture,  uses  it  even 
at  the  present  time.  However,  the  French  did  not  fail  to  avail 
themselves  of  England's  cotton-spinning  machinery,  introduced  in 
1786  and  used  quite  elaborately  at  Creusot  and  Indre.  Yet, 
even  in  1914,  almost  half  of  the  French  looms  for  weaving  linen 
were  operated  by  hand. 

French  genius  did  not  ignore  French  industry.  By  means  of 
Berthollet's  discovery  (1786)5  chlorine  was  applied  to  bleach- 
ing, so  that  what  formerly  by  a  natural  process  had  required 
some  eight  months  to  whiten  was  done  in  two  days.  Joseph 
Jacquard,  to  mention  another  industrial  pioneer,  revolutionized 
(1801)  the  draw  loom  so  that  it  would  weave  intricate  and  deli- 
cate patterns.  But  the  full  force  of  the  Industrial  Revolution  in 
France  was  not  felt  until  after  her  railroad  system  was  com- 
pleted (1855-1860).  Previous  to  that  period,  French  facto- 
ries were  small  and  used  a  correspondingly  small  amount  of 
steam  power.  Indeed,  we  are  informed  that  as  late  as  1896 
"  the  average  number  of  workers  in  the  575,000  industrial  estab- 
lishments of  France  was  5.5  and  only  151  factories  employed 
more  than  1,000  hands  while  400,000  had  one  or  two  work 
people."  5 

Since  the  World  War  France  has  improved  her  position  in 
respect  to  certain  lines  of  exports,  especially  steel.  Some  of  her 
industries  have  been  thoroughly  Americanized,  a  notable  example 
being  in  the  automobile  works  of  Andre  Citroen,  the  largest 
automobile  manufacturer  in  Europe.  Even  more  remarkable 
from  the  standpoint  of  rapidity  was  the  transition  from  simple 
mediaeval  existence  to  the  industrial  form  of  life  experienced  in 
Belgium.  Just  as  in  England,  the  farmers  were  the  first  to  feel 
the  ferment  of  new  scientific  ideas  in  agriculture.  But  with  the 
rapid  development  of  its  resources  and  because  of  its  strategic 
position  on  the  map  of  Europe,  its  fine  system  of  canals,  its 
Antwerp  harbor,  and  its  coal  mines,  Belgium  was  quick  to 
awaken  to  the  modern  day.  It  was  not  long  before  its  factories 
were  humming  with  the  new  music  and  the  land  itself  became  a 
veritable  workshop. 

5  Dietz,  The  Industrial  Revolution  (1927)*  P-  64- 


444    THE  INDUSTRIAL  FORM  OF  CIVILIZATION 

Such  countries  as  Italy,  Austria,  and  Russia  have  been  late- 
comers in  the  industrial  field.  Italy  has  suffered  from  the  lack 
of  coal  and  iron,  things  so  necessary  for  industrial  enterprise. 
On  the  political  side,  Italy  found  it  difficult  to  exemplify  the 
Roman  ideal  of  unity,  although  this  was  achieved  finally  under 
Garibaldi,  Mazzini,  and  Cavour.  As  for  Austria  as  she  was 
before  the  World  War,  the  heterogeneous  character  of  the  peoples 
living  under  the  Hapsburg  rule  made  it  impossible  for  this 
country  to  respond  to  the  industrial  power  that  was  dominating 
almost  all  other  countries  in  Europe.  Russia  was  in  a  worse 
condition  industrially,  if  not  otherwise  moving  along  sluggishly 
between  the  banks  of  East  and  West.  She  was  mediaeval  in  her 
life,  peasant-like  in  population,  and  absolutist  in  government. 
The  story  of  Russian  transformation  must  be  left  to  the  future, 
which  may  observe  unity  where  we  see  only  conflict  and  con- 
tradiction in  the  present  period  of  storm  and  stress. 

THE  GERMAN  AWAKENING 

Many  causes  operated  to  delay  the  industrial  development  of 
Germany.  Even  in  the  early  part  of  the  XlXth  century,  in- 
dustrial development  west  of  the  Rhine  was  behind  that  of 
even  such  an  agricultural  country  as  France.  The  mediaeval 
guild  system  remained  intact  after  it  had  relinquished  its  hold 
upon  other  European  countries.  But  new  economic  forces  were 
at  work  and  new  industries,  organized  upon  a  more  modern 
basis,  were  being  introduced.  These,  together  with  the  extension 
of  the  domestic  system  of  manufacture,  made  the  mediaeval 
form  of  association  incompatible  with  the  modern  ideas  of 
liberty  and  free  competition. 

During  the  European  wars  of  1793-1815,  England  was  profit- 
ing by  the  benefits  of  her  Industrial  Revolution  in  that  she  was 
able  to  compete  with  German  manufacturers  in  their  own 
markets.  This  gave  impetus  to  a  movement  for  a  protective  tariff 
in  Germany,  perhaps  the  first  immediate,  political  effect  of  the 
Industrial  Revolution  there.  Each  of  the  German  states  im- 
posed tariff  duties  on  manufactured  articles  with  the  aim  of 
protecting  domestic  manufacture.  But,  as  Hayes  says,  "  There 


AMERICAN  INDUSTRIALISM  445 

were  so  many  German  states,  however,  that  this  multiplicity  of 
customs  duties  seriously  interfered  with  commerce."  6 

Prussia  was  the  first  state  to  attempt  a  remedy.  She  established 
a  uniform  tariff  over  the  whole  of  Prussia  itself,  imposing  a  20 
per  cent  duty  on  colonial  products  and  a  10  per  cent  duty  on 
manufactured  goods.  She  proceeded  then  to  invite  other  sov- 
ereign states  in  Germany  to  adopt  the  same  regulations  uniting 
the  customs  administrations  with  her  own.  These  states  hesi- 
tated, but  on  January  i,  1834  the  Customs  Union,  or  Zollverein, 
went  into  effect.  It  was  not  long  before  this  Zollverein  was 
found  to  rest  on  good  economic  foundations,  since  it  enabled 
Germans  to  trade  with  one  another  in  freedom  from  the  former 
restrictions  while  it  protected  their  manufacturing  interests  from 
inroads  by  French  and  English  manufacturers. 

Industry  in  Germany,  or  the  Germanics,  before  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Zollverein  was  in  the  hands  of  men  who  employed 
domestic  cottage  workers  or  was  controlled  by  masters  who 
labored  side  by  side  with  the  workers  they  employed.  Almost 
everything  was  done  in  a  small  way.  "  Iron,  for  example,  was 
smelted  in  hundreds  of  very  tiny  furnaces  owned  by  artisans 
who  found  by-employment  on  the  land."  7  Few  in  number 
were  the  large  industries  and  these  in  the  main  were  confined 
to  the  textile  or  allied  trades,  but  there  were  large  sugar  refineries 
in  Hamburg  and  Bremen.  It  was  not  until  after  1845  that  the 
industrial  development  o£  Germany  felt  any  marked  accelera- 
tion. Then  the  textile  industries,  coal  and  iron  productions, 
and  other  industries  increased  their  stride.  Although  Germany 
started  late,  she  learned  how  to  match  the  pace  of  her  com- 
petitors, so  that  German  industrial  history  is  not  wanting  in 
romantic  features.  In  1914,  Germany  was  about  to  dominate 
the  industrial  future  of  Europe. 

AMERICAN  INDUSTRIALISM 

The  Industrial  Revolution  in  America  was  at  first  a  repercus- 
sion of  the  movement  in  the  Old  World.  Workmen  from 

6  History  of  Modern  Etirope,  Vol.  II,  p.  96. 
*  Dictz,  The  Industrial  Revolution,  p.  65. 


446    THE  INDUSTRIAL  FORM  OF  CIVILIZATION 

England  who  had  made  their  homes  in  the  United  States  re- 
produced the  kind  of  machines  with  which  they  were  familiar 
and  often  improved  upon  the  original  patterns.  But  native 
Americans  were  not  behind  their  English  cousins  in  inventive 
genius.  The  fertility  and  versatility  of  the  American  intellect 
is  shown  by  the  number  and  variety  of  patents  issued.  The 
United  States  Patent  Office  was  created  in  1790  through  the 
efforts  of  the  American  inventor  John  Stevens  of  Hoboken.  In 
1833,  the  head  of  this  office  resigned  for  the  reason  that,  in  his 
mind,  every  important  invention  had  been  made.  By  the  year 
1860,  36,000  patents  had  been  granted  and  between  that  date 
and  1890  the  number  was  extended  to  640,000.  The  number 
of  these  patents  is  now  close  to  a  million,  since  the  end  of  the 
first  quarter  of  the  present  century  extended  the  record  up  to 
969,428.  "Nothing  more  strikingly  reveals  the  extent  and 
implications  of  the  economic  revolution  than  the  fact  that  the 
average  number  of  inventions  patented  in  any  one  year  exceeds 
the  total  number  patented  in  the  entire  history  of  the  country 
before  1860."  8 

Yet  it  was  not  until  the  close  of  the  Civil  War  that  the  intense 
business  activity  so  characteristic  of  American  life  became  ob- 
trusive. Except  for  the  South,  prostrated  by  secession  and  re- 
construction, the  years  between  1865  and  1873  were  crowded 
with  enterprises.  East,  North,  and  West  were  vibrating  with 
new  activities.  Railroad  extension  was  so  wide  that  tracks  ran 
from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  and  30,000  shorter  lines  were 
laid  here  and  there  over  the  land.  Agriculture  responded  to  the 
invitations  of  the  soil  and  grew  like  Jonah's  gourd.  Capital 
increased  proportionately  and  the  public  purse  bulged  with 
profits  from  domestic  and  foreign  markets. 

The  parts  of  the  "  Machine,"  which  now  looks  so  formidable, 
were  being  put  together.  Inventions  of  importance  to  railroads 
were  the  Westinghouse  air  brake  (1869),  Jamey's  automatic 
coupler  (1871),  and  various  other  devices  enhancing  transporta- 
tion. The  Pullman  car  appeared  in  1864  and  sought  to  add 
refinement  and  comfort  to  the  speed  of  travel.  Meanwhile 
Stephen  Field  and  Thomas  A.  Edison  were  making  significant 

8  Morison  and  Commagcr,  The  Growth  of  the  American  Republic,  p.  689. 


AMERICAN  INDUSTRIALISM  447 

experiments  in  electric  transportation.  In  connection  with  the 
principle  of  rapid  communication  between  remote  points,  Sam- 
uel F.  B.  Morse,  professor  of  art  at  New  York  University,  per- 
fected the  recording  telegraph  (1837),  while  in  1866  Cyrus  W. 
Field  and  Sir  Charles  Bright  succeeded  in  laying  the  Adantic 
cable.  In  1876,  Alexander  Graham  Bell  made  the  toy  telephone 
an  economic  and  social  necessity.  Now  these  historical  items 
do  little  more  than  call  our  attention  to  the  vast  and  intricate 
system  of  mechanical  arrangement  enveloping  us  and  invading 
our  precious  lives. 

The  industrial  drive  that  started  in  the  soil,  turned  itself 
into  a  machine,  and  then  assumed  the  form  of  electricity,  is 
no  longer  an  Industrial  Revolution.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  movement  was  a  revolution,  but  it  is  a  question  whether 
that  £erm  can  be  qualified  by  the  adjective  "  industrial."  In  like 
manner,  we  may  question  whether  we  can  come  to  an  under- 
standing with  the  time  by  speaking  of  it  as  the  "  Machine  Age." 
As  Beard  says,  "  Indeed,  effort  to  reduce  the  confusion  of  the 
modern  age  to  principles  of  control,  whether  in  matters  of  busi- 
ness, labor,  health,  family  life,  economy,  the  arts,  government  or 
international  relations,  is  no  mere  excursion  in  mechanics,  no 
mere  question  of  arranging  material  objects." 9  The  Industrial 
Revolution  which  has  transformed  human  life  and  reshaped  the 
earth  has  done  more  than  create  business;  it  kas  brought  us 
face  to  face  with  the  business  of  living.  Hence,  we  cannot  solve 
the  problem  of  life  by  inventing  a  machine  or  save  our  souls  by 
passing  a  law. 

In  order  to  see  where  we  stand,  let  us  glance  eastward.  A 
swift  glance  at  China  and  India  serves  to  disclose  the  difference 
between  the  land  where  the  sun  rises  and  that  where  it  sets. 
The  older,  eastern  civilization  is  based  on  human  labor  as  its 
source  of  power  in  pathetic  contrast  to  a  civilization  conducted 
by  the  gigantic  robots  that  the  western  man  has  made.  But 
before  the  civilization  of  the  West  could  effect  the  change  from 
man  to  machine,  it  had  to  pass  through  some  exacting  experiences. 
While  the  transfer  was  going  on,  it  tended  to  perpetuate  old 
evils  and  add  new  ones  to  their  store.  The  movement  from  field 

9  Whither  Mankind,  pp.  405-406. 


448    THE  INDUSTRIAL  FORM  OF  CIVILIZATION 

to  factory,  from  kitchen  to  workshop  and  then  to  the  huge  plant 
wherein  the  worker  became  but  a  hand  was  not  without  the 
wrongs  that  Mammon  can  ever  cause,  and  many  have  been  the 
bitter  fruits  that  have  grown  up  and  ripened  from  the  root  of 
all  evil. 

THE  NEW  HOUSE  OF  BONDAGE 

The  immediate  effect  of  the  Industrial  Revolution  was  to  im- 
prove the  outer  condition  of  the  laboring  classes  as  they  moved 
out  of  the  house  of  feudal  bondage.  There  were  high  wages,  to 
say  nothing  of  improvement  in  economic  conditions  generally, 
and  more  improved  ways  of  living.  Hosts  of  farm  laborers,  glad 
to  escape  from  the  servile  conditions  of  farm  and  estate,  began 
to  flock  toward  the  industrial  centers.  And  not  these  alone, 
for  their  number  was  augmented  by  a  stream  from  another 
land,  and  the  sons  of  Erin  began  to  come  over  from  the  Green 
Isle  seeking  their  share  of  the  wealth  in  the  English  Eldorado. 
The  result  was  unregulated  or  almost  chaotic  competition  among 
the  "hands,"  whose  wages  began  to  fall,  and  in  the  economic 
struggle  in  the  factory;  the  children  of  the  factory  worker  were 
forced  into  the  labor  market,  for  the  pay  of  the  householder 
was  not  sufficient  unto  the  needs  of  the  household. 

Factory  towns  in  England  were  the  battlefields  where  the 
new  war  was  waged  and  the  homes  of  the  toilers  became  the 
"  barracks  of  industry."  Not  only  did  the  workers  have  to  meet 
the  competition  offered  by  rival  workers  and  endure  the  conse- 
quent reduction  of  wages;  they  were  forced  to  face  periods  of 
unemployment  thrust  upon  industry  and  beyond  the  power  of 
either  employer  or  employee  to  control.  New  ideas  and  chang- 
ing fashions  outmoded  old  ones  and  left  the  new  industrialists 
stranded.  "  Both  the  manufacturer  and  his  hands  were  at  the 
mercy  of  a  change  of  fashions  in  Vienna,  the  failure  of  a  bank- 
ing house  in  Edinburgh,  a  revolt  in  India,  too  rapid  expansion 
in  the  production  of  everything  from  pottery  clay  to  tea  and, 
above  all,  war  in  Europe." 10  Until  1847  there  was  no  limit  set  to 
the  working  day  and  the  hours  of  labor  in  New  England  fac- 
tories, for  example,  varied  from  60  to  80  per  week.  Some  classes 

10  Dietz,  The  Industrial  Revolution,  pp.  37-38. 


"PROGRESS  AND  POVERTY "  449 

of  workers,  as  the  tailoresses,  toiled  as  many  as  twelve  hours 
a  day  seven  days  a  week,  with  an  average  weekly  wage  of  $3.81, 
providing  no  time  was  lost.  These  facts  and  others  like  them 
were  brought  out  by  an  investigating  committee  of  the  Senate.11 
Little  or  no  thought  was  given  to  the  question  of  sanitation 
or  of  safeguarding  the  worker  from  possible  injuries  from  the 
machinery.  In  Europe,  children  who  were  scarcely  more  than 
infants  marched  in  their  wooden  clogs  over  the  cobblestones  to 
their  places  in  the  factory,  there  to  toil  from  sunrise  to  sunset. 
In  the  mines  such  children  worked  in  water,  in  total  darkness 
and  foul  air,  "  opening  or  shutting  trap  doors  all  day  long  or 
dragging,  tied  by  girdle  and  chain  and  on  hands  and  knees, 
loads  of  coal  too  heavy  for  them." 12  By  the  early  part  of  the 
XlXth  century,  the  growth  of  the  population  effected  by  the 
Industrial  Revolution  was  startling,  and  it  has  been  estimated 
that  between  1820  and  1870,  the  numbers  increased  20  per  cent 
in  France,  55  per  cent  in  Germany,  and  83  per  cent  in  England. 
This  growth  was  chiefly  in  cities,  so  that  for  the  first  time  in 
western  Europe  there  was  a  type  of  civilization  distinctly  urban. 
The  new  industrialism  developed  fortunes  of  huge  proportions. 
The  lords  on  their  estates  enjoyed  this  increase,  not  only  through 
investments,  but  by  leasing  lands  for  the  new  cities;  in  ad- 
dition to  this,  they  did  not  fail  to  exact  royalties  upon  the  coal 
and  iron  worked  from  their  lands,  as  well  as  from  the  railroads 
that  passed  through  their  estates. 

c*  PROGRESS  AND  POVERTY  " 

Alongside  this  great  wealth  was  a  form  of  poverty  unlike 
anything  hitherto  seen  and  it  seemed  necessary  for  every  Dives 
to  have  his  Lazarus.  In  1847,  John  Stuart  Mill  uttered  memor- 
able words  when  he  said,  "  Hitherto  it  is  questionable  if  all  the 
mechanical  inventions  yet  made  have  lightened  the  day's  toil 
of  any  human  being.  They  have  enabled  a  great  population  to 
live  the  same  life  of  drudgery  and  imprisonment."  Carlyle 

11  Report  of  the  Committee  of  the  Senate  upon  the  Relations  between  Labor 
and  Capital  (1885),  pp.  284-287. 

12  Warner  and  Martin,  The  Groimdwor\  of  British  History  (1926),  p.  596. 
S.T. — 30 


45o    THE  INDUSTRIAL  FORM  OF  CIVILIZATION 

asserted  that  the  question  of  all  questions  to  which  an  answer 
must  be  found  was  the  "  condition  of  England,"  meaning  by 
this  the  social  and  economic  degradation  of  the  workers.  In 
like  manner,  politically  minded  workers,  who  met  in  taverns 
and  obscure  places,  expressed  the  belief  that  their  problems  could 
be  solved  only  by  having  Parliament  pass  suitable  laws,  while 
labor  unionists  began  to  advocate  the  principle  of  collective 
bargaining. 

In  France,  men  like  Saint-Simon,  Fourier,  and  Proudhon  were 
profoundly  stirred  by  the  social  situation  engendered  by  the 
new  industrial  force.  But  it  was  in  England  and  Germany  that 
the  boldest  spirits  were  to  be  found.  Other  men  besides  Carlyle 
were  seeking  the  answer  to  the  great  question.  John  Stuart  Mill, 
to  mention  only  one  English  economist,  was  getting  down  to  the 
foundations  of  the  new  Political  Economy.  Robert  Owen  may 
have  had  less  economic  insight,  yet  he  rejoiced  in  practical  wisdom 
and  simple  faith  in  the  possibilities  of  mankind;  like  Saint-Simon 
and  Fourier,  he  sought  to  improve  the  actual  conditions  of  the 
worker.  In  Owen's  mind,  misery  was  the  result  of  the  competi- 
tion between  men  and  machinery;  the  cure  of  it  was  to  be  found, 
he  thought,  in  the  cooperative  use  of  the  means  of  production  and 
the  subordination  of  them  to  the  well-being  of  the  masses.  His 
various  experiments  in  education,  his  theories  regarding  the  in- 
fluence of  environment  upon  character,  and  his  earnest  effort  to 
make  the  State  a  protective  agency  for  the  weak  were  instrumental 
in  inaugurating  social  reforms  and  factory  legislation  as  well  as  a 
new  view  of  the  State's  responsibility  toward  its  members. 

LABOR  LEGISLATION 

Public  attention  having  been  called  to  the  evils  of  the  factory 
system,  Parliament  was  forced  to  act  and  a  series  of  Factory  Acts, 
forty  of  them,  were  placed  on  the  statute  books.  The  first  of  such 
laws,  passed  in  1802  and  1833,  dealt  exclusively  with  conditions 
in  the  cotton  factories.  The  act  of  1833  forbade  the  employment 
of  children  under  the  age  of  nine,  while  those  between  the  ages 
of  nine  and  thirteen  were  to  be  given  two  hours  a  day  in  school. 
Later  acts  prohibited  the  employment  of  women  and  children  in 


LABOR  LEGISLATION 

the  coal  mines.  The  persistent  humanitarianism  of  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury  bore  fruit  in  an  act  passed  in  1847  in  spite  of  the  strenuous 
opposition  of  a  large  group  in  Parliament  who  apparently  could 
not  see  why  the  period  of  labor  in  factories  should  be  limited,  in 
the  case  of  women,  boys,  and  girls,  to  ten  hours  per  day.  These 
laws  were  the  precursors  of  a  steadily  increasing  number  of  regu- 
lative and  remedial  acts  passed  in  all  industrial  countries.  Thus 
the  modern  State  has  been  forced  by  the  Industrial  Revolution  to 
participate  in  the  social  and  economic  welfare  of  the  people. 

While  the  influence  of  Owen  and  almost  all  other  social  re- 
formers in  England  was  practically  limited  to  their  own  land,  the 
influence  of  Karl  Marx  was  to  be  felt  in  every  land  where  the 
social  problems  of  the  Industrial  Revolution  emerged.  Marx  was 
a  Hebrew  and  a  Hegelian.  His  intellect,  as  Ramsay  MacDonald 
has  said,  "  was  of  the  massive  order  which  conceives  big  systems, 
which  follows  them  through  their  ramifications  and  which  at  the 
same  time  is  capable  of  taking  instant  action  on  the  passing  inci- 
dents of  the  day." 13  The  socialism  of  Marx  presents  the  thesis 
that  if  the  workers  of  the  world  are  to  be  emancipated  they  must 
realize  the  fact  that  they  are  engaged  in  a  titanic  struggle  against 
the  master  class  that  is  exploiting  their  labors.  The  conception  of 
life  thus  involved  is  industrial,  the  determining  factor  in  history 
economic,  and  the  conclusion  a  practical  one.  Marx  brought 
socialism  down  to  earth  from  the  Utopian  clouds  in  which  it  had 
long  languished.  His  merit  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  called  attention 
to  the  abuses  of  industrialism  and  the  shortcomings  of  capitalism. 
At  the  same  time,  he  is  not  just  the  sort  of  individual  one  would 
acclaim  as  dictator  or  vote  for  as  President.  And  those  who 
sympathize  with  the  aspirations  of  such  socialists  are  bound  to 
realize  that  there  is  no  short  and  easy  way  out  of  the  industrial 
complications  that  have  developed  since  the  soil  was  thoroughly 
cultivated  and  modern  machinery  began  to  move. 

Those  who  study  civilization  realize  the  importance  of  industry, 
but  are  not  willing  to  let  its  machines  throw  dust  into  their  eyes. 
Industry  is  not  the  whole  of  life  and  those  who  see  everything  in 
the  machine  are  somewhat  myopic  in  their  vision.  Life  is  more 
than  meat  and  the  body  more  than  raiment.  Industry  was  meant 

13  The  Socialist  Movement,  p.  206. 


452    THE  INDUSTRIAL  FORM  OF  CIVILIZATION 

to  emancipate  man,  not  to  enslave  him;  to  save  labor  and  create 
leisure*  At  the  present  rate  of  progress,  the  near  future  should 
see  mankind  doing  the  work  of  the  world  in  a  fraction  of  the 
time  formerly  devoted  to  it.  The  tendency  to  abridge  the  time 
of  industry  is  appearing  in  the  shorter  labor-day  and  shorter 
labor-week.  Then  will  arise  the  problem  of  leisure  or  the  ques- 
tion, what  to  do  with  oneself.  This  will  afford  the  opportunity 
for  general  culture  or  the  improvement  of  one's  own  life.  None 
the  less  will  the  new  leisure  provide  room  for  civilization  and  it 
is  in  man  himself  rather  than  in  any  machine  that  he  can  make 
that  civilization  is  to  be  found. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
THE  RELIGIOUS  TREND  OF  MODERN  LIFE 


CONTEMPORARY    RELIGION 

THE  SCIENCE  ANI>  PHILOSOPHY,  POLITICS  AND  ECONOMICS  OF 
modern  life  have  not  prevented  or  prohibited  the  con- 
tinuation or  development  of  the  religious  trend  in  human 
life.  However,  the  modern  mind  does  not  accept  religion  in- 
stinctively nor  treat  it  dogmatically,  but  is  inclined  to  question 
its  philosophical  basis,  scientific  validity,  and  social  value.  The 
religious  ideals  of  the  western  world  in  the  XXth  century  are 
still  those  of  Asia  Minor  two  or  three  thousand  years  ago,  but 
these  have  undergone  definite  criticism  as  to  their  validity  and 
value.  The  modern  Christian  is  now  more  than  ever  conscious 
of  nourishing  his  spiritual  life  and  instructing  his  intellect  with 
values  and  ideas  that  another  race,  to  say  nothing  of  another  age 
and  clime,  once  gave  him.  He  seeks  to  atone  for  this  by  con- 
tributing his  own  critical  ideas,  the  fruits  of  his  logic  and  ethics. 
In  dealing  with  the  modern  trend  in  religion,  it  will  be  most 
convenient  to  consider  it  historically  in  its  theological  and  philo- 
sophical, its  scientific  and  social  forms.  This  treatment  will  in- 
volve a  consideration  of  English  Deism  and  German  philosophy 
of  religion,  the  Anglo-American  conflict  of  science  and  religion, 
as  also  the  American  application  of  psychology  and  sociology  to 
religion.  Contemporary  conclusions  to  the  great  religious  ques- 
tion will  be  found  in  the  Social  Gospel  and  Humanism. 

ENGLISH  DEISM 

The  beginnings  of  modern  philosophy  of  religion  were  made 
early  in  the  XVIIth  century  by  the  English  Deists.  Usually  the 
term  "  Deism  "  is  taken  to  signify  the  idea  of  God  outside  of  and 
transcending  the  universe  in  distinction  from  the  notion  of  an 
immanental  Deity.  But  in  the  historical  sense,  the  term  has  a 
specific  meaning.  It  signifies  a  system  of  religious  thought  which 

453 


454       RELIGIOUS  TREND  OF  MODERN  LIFE 

asserts  the  rights  of  man  in  opposition  to  the  authority  of  the 
Church,  and  reason  rather  than  tradition  as  the  guide  to  religious 
belief.    In  the  case  of  the  English  Deists,  a  Deist  was  one  who 
asserted  the  rights  of  free  thought  and  who  supported  the  con- 
tention that  religion  is  based  upon  reason  rather  than  revelation. 
The  term  "  Deist "  appeared  as  early  as  1693  in  a  work  by  Thomas 
Blount  entitled  The  Oracles  of  Reason,  and  may  have  been  used 
even  earlier,  since  the  idea  of  Deism  dates  back  to  the  beginning 
of  that  century.    Deism  itself  was  but  a  definite  and  forceful  ex- 
pression of  Natural  Religion,  a  rationalistic  notion  prevailing 
throughout  the  XVIIth  and  XVIIIth  centuries  during  the  period 
called  The  Enlightenment,  die  Auftyarung,  Lf£daircissement. 
In  dealing  with  Deism,  we  must  not  fail  to  observe  that  it  was 
more  of  a  popular  and  even  political  movement  than  a  philo- 
sophical school.   It  was  based  upon  the  general  conception  of  the 
Law  of  Nature  as  this  was  developed  in  the  form  of  Natural  Re- 
ligion and  Natural  Rights.    The  first  of  these  movements  was 
headed  by  Herbert  of  Cherbury  in  England,  the  second  by  Hugo 
.Grotius  in  Holland.    From  one  we  received  the  idea  of  religio 
naturalis,  from  the  other  that  of  jus  naturale.   Between  these  two 
movements  which  aimed  at  universal  religion  and  international 
law  there  is  an  association  which  is  both  logical  and  chronologi- 
cal.   In  1624  Herbert  produced  his  religious  work  On  Truth  — 
De  Veritate;  in  1625  appeared  Grotius'  juristic  work  The  Rights 
of  War  and  Peace — De  Jure  Belli  ac  Pacts.    These  exponents 
of  the  Law  of  Nature  in  both  religion  and  rights  were  personally 
acquainted  and  seemed  to  share  their  ideas.    The  intimacy  of 
their  acquaintanceship  is  shown  in  Herbert's  autobiography, 
wherein  he  says  —  "  My  book,  De  Veritate,  having  been  begun 
by  me  in  England  and  formed  there  in  all  its  principal  parts,  was 
about  this  time  finished.  ...  I  communicated  it  to  Hugo  Gro- 
tius, that  great  scholar  who,  having  escaped  his  prison  in  the 
Low  Countries,  came  into  France  and  was  much  welcomed  by 
me  and  Monsieur  Tielenus  also,  one  of  the  greatest  scholars  of 
his  time,  who  after  they  had  perused  it  and  had  given  it  more 
commendation  than  is  fit  for  me  to  repeat,  exhorted  me  earnestly 
to  print  and  publish  it."  * 

1  Autobiography  of  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury <,  p.  347. 


NATURAL  RELIGION 


NATURAL  RELIGION  AND  NATURAL  RIGHTS 


455 


In  addition  to  the  personal  association  of  these  two  pioneers, 
there  was  a  certain  logical  likeness  between  their  works.  Herbert 
asserted  the  existence  of  a  natural  religion  prior  to  the  determina- 
tion of  definite  creeds  and  established  forms  in  religion.  Grotius 
affirmed  the  existence  of  a  natural  right  independent  of  definite 
codes  and  actual  legislation.  They  seemed  to  have  in  mind  a 
law  written  in  the  hearts  of  men.  Both  agreed  in  deducing  their 
first  principles  a  priori  from  the  very  nature  of  man;  both  pro- 
ceeded from  this  a  posteriori  to  the  actual  existence  of  this  law 
in  both  creed  and  code.  Their  appeal  was  to  an  instinctus  natu- 
rdis  and  a  consensus  univer salts.  The  fusion  of  Natural  Religion 
and  Natural  Rights  is  to  be  found  in  Charles  Blount's  Religio 
Laid  (1682)  wherein  the  author  considered  Herbert's  principles 
of  universal  religion  the  best  basis  for  religious  toleration. 

But  the  effectual  fusion  of  Natural  Religion  and  Natural  Rights 
was  brought  about  by  two  major  thinkers  of  The  Enlightenment, 
Locke  (1632-1704)  and  Spinoza  (1632-1677).  These  two  men 
belong  to  the  class  of  great  thinkers  and  are  not  to  be  confused 
with  the  Deists,  whose  thought  lacked  depth  and  whose  philoso- 
phy of  religion  was  little  more  than  a  protest  against  dogmatism 
and  the  civil  establishment  of  religion.  In  the  case  of  Spinoza 
there  was  little  likeness  between  the  pantheistic  philosophy  he 
developed  into  a  system  and  the  deistic  propaganda  his  writings 
seemed  to  serve.  With  Locke,  the  distance  from  Deism  was  even 
greater,  since  Locke  elaborated  a  system  of  empirical  philosophy 
quite  antithetical  to  deistic  rationalism.  How,  then,  are  the 
names  of  these  two  thinkers  to  be  associated  with  the  deistic 
movement?  In  a  political,  not  a  philosophical  manner,  for  it 
was  their  practical  conceptions  of  the  State  and  not  their  theoret- 
ical views  of  nature  that  Deists  used  in  advancing  their  cause. 

Although  Spinoza's  speculative  philosophy  was  dogmatic,  his 
theory  of  politics  was  liberal.  He  proceeded  from  Hobbes'  idea 
that  right  is  might,  but  softened  this  severe  doctrine  by  making 
it  apply  to  what  we  might  call  the  might  of  the  brain.  His  argu- 
ment was  that,  since  one  has  the  right  to  do  whatever  is  in  his 
power,  he  has  the  right  to  think  freely,  since  his  private  thoughts 


45<S       RELIGIOUS  TREND  OF  MODERN  LIFE 

are  things  over  which  no  outside  power,  like  that  of  the  magis- 
trate, has  any  control.2  The  contention  in  favor  of  inward  free- 
dom is  to  be  made  in  favor  of  spiritual  worship  over  which  the 
magistrate  has  no  control,  although  he  may  enjoin  the  duties  of 
justice  and  charity.3  These  practical  conclusions  of  Spinoza  were 
based  upon  his  distinction  between  the  realms  of  reason  and 
theology  or,  as  we  should  say,  between  science  and  religion. 
"  Reason  is  the  realm  of  truth  and  knowledge,  theology  that  of 
piety  and  obedience  —  ratio  regnum  veritatis  et  sapientiae;  theo- 
logia  autem  pietatis  et  obedientiae."  4  To  us  such  a  distinction 
seems  obvious  and  the  mention  of  it  trite.  Not  so,  however,  in 
the  XVIIth  century,  when  State  and  Church  were  one  and  where 
the  control  of  the  citizen  was  both  political  and  ecclesiastical; 
hence  the  importance  of  Spinoza's  Theologico-political  Tractate 
of  1670. 

FREE  THOUGHT  AND  TOLERATION 

Spinoza's  relation  to  Deism  was  only  indirect.  His  Latin  lan- 
guage was  hardly  accessible  to  the  average  Deist  and  his  thought 
too  profound  for  any  of  them.  His  theory  of  free  thought  was 
calculated  to  enhance  their  idea  of  liberty,  had  they  known  his 
philosophy;  but  for  the  most  part  they  did  not.  It  is  significant 
to  observe  in  this  connection  that  the  Deist  Anthony  Collins,  in 
his  list  of  free  thinkers  from  Socrates  to  Locke,  fails  to  mention 
the  magic  name  of  this  Spinoza!  Yet  Deism  was  not  wholly 
unaware  of  Spinoza's  name.  A  certain  Kortholt  considered  him 
with  Herbert  and  Hobbes  as  one  of  the  "  three  impostors."  The 
Deist  Toland  (1670-1722),  whose  ideas  were  somewhat  panthe- 
istic, was  called  by  Warburton  the  "  mimic  of  Spinoza," 5  and 
the  name  of  Matthew  Tindal,  the  arch-Deist,  was  associated  with 
that  of  the  great  philosopher.  This  was  in  a  bit  of  doggerel  that 
went  the  rounds  in  the  palmy  days  of  Deism : 

"  Spinoza  smiles  and  cries  the  work  is  done; 
Tindal  shall  finish  (Satan's  darling  son)  — 
Tindal  shall  finish  what  Spinoza  first  begun." 

2  Theologico-political  Tractate  (1670),  Cap.  XVII.          8  Ib.t  Cap.  XVIII. 
*  lb.,  Cap.  XV.       5  Divine  Legation  of  Moses,  5th  ed.,  Vol.  IV,  p.  373. 


FREE  THOUGHT  AND  TOLERATION        457 

Locke's  theory  of  toleration  was  more  accessible  to  the  Deists, 
although  they  were  more  inclined  to  a  vigorous  assertion  of  free 
thought  than  a  rational  plea  for  toleration.  Locke's  philosophy, 
as  we  have  intimated,  was  far  from  being  deistic.  Indeed,  when 
he  assumed  that  the  mind  is  by  nature  a  blank  tablet  dependent 
upon  sensation  for  its  knowledge,  he  was  asserting  something 
the  very  opposite  of  Deism,  which  assumed  the  existence  of  a 
Law  of  Nature  written  in  the  heart  of  man.  What  Locke  did 
was  to  insist  upon  the  inner  character  of  religious  faith  and  its 
consequent  independence  of  control  by  State  and  Church.  How 
could  a  magistrate  dictate  one's  private  belief?  "Although  his 
opinion  in  religion  be  sound,"  said  Locke,  "  and  the  way  he  ap- 
points truly  evangelical,  if  I  be  not  thoroughly  persuaded  in  my 
own  mind,  then  there  will  be  no  safety  for  me  in  following  it."  6 
It  was  on  such  a  basis  that  Locke  assumed  the  right  to  work  out 
his  own  conception  of  religious  faith. 

The  Deists  themselves  had  no  such  philosophy  as  we  have  seen 
in  Spinoza  and  Locke  or  even  in  Herbert  and  Grotius,  but  they 
did  not  introduce  their  religious  ideas  without  preparing  the  way 
for  them  by  political  tracts  calculated  to  advance  the  cause  of  free 
thought.  For  the  sake  of  emphasizing  the  political  character  of 
this  theological  movement,  we  make  mention  of  their  contribu- 
tions to  the  legalistic  literature  of  the  day.  Tindal  produced,  in 
1694,  An  Essay  Concerning  the  Laws  of  Nations  and  the  Eights 
of  Sovereigns.  This  was  followed  in  1694  by  An  Essay  Con- 
cerning Obedience  to  the  Supreme  Powers,  In  a  more  philo- 
sophical manner  he  wrote,  in  1697,  An  Essay  on  the  Eights  of 
Mankind  and  added  to  this  A  Discourse  on  the  Uberty  of  the 
Press  (1698).  We  continue  the  list  of  juristic  works  produced  by 
the  Deists  by  mentioning  John  Toland's  Life  of  Milton  (1699) 
and  his  Amyntor  (1699)  in  defense  of  it.  Toland  produced  also 
Paradoxes  of  State  (1707),  The  Art  of  Governing  by  Parties 
(1707),  and  Anglia  Libera  (1707).  Even  Thomas  Chubb  (1679- 
1747),  the  humble  tallow-candle  dipper  but  influential  Deist, 
wrote  Some  Short  Reflections  on  the  Ground  and  Extent  of 
Authority  and  Liberty  (1728)-  But  the  classic  work  of  this  phase 
of  Deism  was  that  of  Anthony  Collins,  A  Discourse  of  Free 
6  Letters  for  Toleration  (1689),  Worlds,  nth  ed.,  Vol.  VI,  pp.  17-26. 


45g       RELIGIOUS  TREND  OF  MODERN  LIFE 

Thinking  (1713),  a  rather  specious  work  in  which  the  author 
contends  that  "the  surest  and  best  means  of  arriving  at  truth 
lies  in  free  thinking." 7  Without  such  liberty,  argues  this  author, 
it  will  be  difficult  for  one  to  decide  between  a  true  religion  and 
a  false  one. 

Why  mention  a  series  of  works  long  since  forgotten?  It  was 
by  these  that  Deism  was  established  and  the  development  of 
Deism,  although  it  was  a  wretched  affair,  was  the  beginning 
of  modern  religious  thought.  The  effect  of  such  a  combination  of 
the  theological  and  political  on  the  basis  of  what  the  Deists  called 
reason  was  felt  in  this  country  in  the  case  of  Thomas  Paine,  if 
not  in  that  of  Thomas  Jefferson  also,  in  the  popular  "  infidelity  " 
of  Robert  G.  Ingersoll  as  also  in  the  gay  theology  of  the  late 
Elbert  Hubbard.  Indeed  it  might  be  possible  to  find  survivors 
of  the  deistic  movement  among  some  of  the  free  thinkers  of  the 
present  day. 

RATIONAL  CHRISTIANITY 

After  Deism  had  contended  for  free  thought,  it  proceeded  to 
the  rationalization  of  Christianity.  This  was  undertaken  first  by 
an  obscure  writer  named  Arthur  Bury  in  a  work  entided  The 
Na\ed  Gospel  (1690).  Again  appeared  Locke  in  the  role  of  a 
semi-Deist  when  he  published  his  essay  on  The  Reasonableness 
of  Christianity  (1695),  a  work  which  sought  to  reestablish  primi- 
tive Christianity  pretty  much  as  our  Modernists  are  trying  to 
do  today.  Locke's  conception  of  Christianity  was  much  like  that 
of  John  the  Baptist  in  that  he  saw  in  Christianity  only  a  doctrine 
of  repentance  and  faith;  a  belief  in  Jesus  as  the  Messiah  and  a 
"  good  life  "  were  the  essentials  of  true  religion.  John  Toland 
gave  a  deistic  touch  to  such  views  when  he  produced  his  Christi- 
anity not  Mysterious  (1696).  Anthony  Collins  continued  the 
deistic  interpretation  of  the  Gospels  in  his  The  Grounds  and 
Reasons  of  the  Christian  Religion  (1724),  a  work  in  which  he 
questioned  the  authenticity  of  the  fulfillment  of  the  prophecies 
recorded  in  the  New  Testament.  To  this,  William  Woolston 
added  an  attack  on  the  miracles  mentioned  in  the  Gospels,  while 
Thomas  Chubb,  relying  upon  the  favorite  notion  of  the  Law  of 

7  Op.  cit.,  p.  33- 


THE  DOWNFALL  OF  DEISM 

Nature,  produced  a  work  entitled  The  True  Gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ  Asserted  (1728). 

Out  of  such  rationalized  Christianity  grew  a  system  of  Natural 
Religion  based  on  the  famous  Law  of  Nature  deduced  by  Herbert 
and  Grotius.  This  was  the  work  of  Matthew  Tindal  in  his  im- 
pressive volume  Christianity  as  Old  as  the  Creation;  or  the  Gospel 
a  Republication  of  the  Law  of  Nature  (1730).  This  work  was 
known  as  "  the  Bible  of  the  Deists  n  and  elicited  more  than  a 
hundred  replies,  chief  among  which  was  Bishop  Butler's  famous 
Analogy  of  Natural  and  Revealed  Religion  (1736).  Butler  was 
supposed  to  have  answered  Tindal  and  all  the  other  Deists  but, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  was  really  assenting  to  their  main  idea, 
only  his  tone  was  more  reverent  and  his  emphasis  upon  revela- 
tion much  greater  than  theirs. 

THE  DOWNFALL  OF  DEISM 

The  reply  to  Deism  came  from  unexpected  sources.  A  certain 
Henry  Dodwell  wrote,  in  1742,  a  work  called  Christianity  not 
Founded  on  Argument  and  began  to  cast  doubt  on  a  rationalized 
Christianity,  saying,  "A  boasted  rational  faith  is  without  the 
least  foundation  in  either  nature  or  revelation."  8  In  like  manner 
Lord  Bolingbroke,  a  kind  of  parlor-Deist,  was  just  as  skeptical 
about  Deism's  fundamental  dogma.  "It  cannot  be  proved," 
said  he,  "  without  the  help  of  the  Old  Testament,  nor  very  well 
with  it,  that  the  unity  of  God  was  the  primitive  belief  of  mankind, 
but  I  think  it  evident  that  the  first  and  great  principle  of  natural 
theology  could  not  fail  to  be  discovered  as  soon  as  men  began  to 
contemplate  themselves  and  all  objects  that  surrounded  them."  9 
But  it  was  due  to  Hume  that  Deism  was  brought  to  an  end  as 
a  philosophy  of  religion,  Hume's  skepticism  would  not  permit 
one  to  dogmatize  concerning  the  existence  of  God,  which  the 
Deists  had  taken  for  granted.  Then,  his  historical  sense  led  him 
to  see  the  absurdity  of  the  deistic  notion  that  a  perfect  Natural 
Religion  was  the  possession  of  primitive  men,  who,  according  to 
Hume,  had  "  a  low  and  grovelling  sense  of  Deity."  In  France, 
which  had  borrowed  Deism  from  England,  Rousseau  tended  to 

*  Op.  tit.,  p.  7.  9  Wor\s  (i754)>  VoL  IV,  p.  203. 


46o       RELIGIOUS  TREND  OF  MODERN  LIFE 

offset  the  progress  of  the  movement  by  making  religion  a  matter 
of  emotion.  In  Germany,  where  Reimarus  had  introduced  the 
deistic  idea,  Lessing  served  to  restore  the  importance  of  historical 
religion  by  regarding  it,  as  it  appears  in  the  Bible,  as  "  the  educa- 
tion of  the  human  race." 

The  direct  results  of  Deism,  which  were  felt  until  the  close 
of  the  XVIIIth  century,  are  now  lost  to  view.  After  Hume  and 
Kant  had  criticized  reason  and  revealed  its  limitations,  modern 
thought  was  no  longer  in  a  mood  to  dogmatize  about  the  power 
of  the  human  understanding  to  solve  transcendental  problems. 
With  the  Deists,  reason  was  largely  a  word,  a  motto,  or  a  sort  of 
chronometer  one  could  carry  about  with  him  and  consult  as  the 
occasion  might  arise.  However,  the  history  of  Natural  Religion, 
or  Deism,  was  of  value  in  liberating  the  human  mind  for  religious 
inquiry.  In  addition  to  this,  it  had  the  advantage  of  pointing  out 
the  fact  that  religion  as  such  is  the  universal  possession  of  the 
human  spirit.  The  freedom  of  the  subject  and  subject  matter 
of  religion  made  possible  a  philosophy  of  religion,  a  constructive 
rather  than  a  purely  contentious  view.  This  was  taken  up  in 
Germany  in  the  latter  part  of  the  XVIIIth  and  early  part  of  the 
XlXth  centuries.  It  was  the  work  of  Kant,  Schleiermacher,  and 
Hegel. 

GERMAN  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION 

These  three  German  thinkers  agreed  tacitly  that  religion  was 
some  form  of  absolute  life.  They  differed  in  their  ways  of  re- 
garding this.  Kant  stressed  the  moral  value  of  religion,  which 
he  defined  as  "  the  recognition  of  all  our  duties  as  divine  com- 
mands." Hegel  proceeded  to  religion  from  his  usual  point  of 
view,  which  was  that  of  intellectualism.  He  defined  religion 
as  "the  finite's  spirit's  recognition  of  itself  as  absolute  Spirit." 
Schleiermacher,  the  theologian  of  German  Romanticism,  ignored 
both  the  ethical  and  the  logical  conception  of  religion  and 
sought  to  place  it  upon  an  aesthetical  basis.  He  defined  religion 
as  "  a  feeling  of  absolute  dependence,  and  held  that  it  lies  at  the 
basis  of  all  thought  and  action."  For  convenience,  we  may  sug- 
gest that  Kant  found  religion  in  the  will,  Hegel  in  the  intellect, 
and  Schleiermacher  in  the  feelings. 


GERMAN  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION       ^fa 

KANT 

The  depth  of  Kant's  thought  was  such  as  to  submerge  his 
verbal  description  of  religion  and  to  discourage  all  who,  like 
Matthew  Arnold,  try  to  regard  religion  as  "morality  touched 
with  emotion."  Kant's  starting  point  was  that  of  radical  evil 
in  the  world.  This  he  does  not  attribute  to  sense  alone,  which 
would  make  man  simply  bestial;  or  to  reason  only,  for  that 
would  make  the  evil  in  man  a  diabolical  thing.  Human  bad- 
ness comes  about  when  man,  who  is  a  creature  of  both  sense 
and  reason  and  who  should  elevate  reason  to  the  higher  position, 
tends  to  lower  reason  for  the  sake  of  sensuous  advantage.  It  is 
the  office  of  religion  to  reverse  this  natural  tendency  by  means 
of  total  repentance  rather  than  by  tentative  reform  on  the  part 
of  the  religious  subject.  This  is  the  redemption  of  the  individual, 
although  it  would  seem  from  Kant's  discussion  of  it  that  the 
highest  religious  act  was  the  self-salvation  of  Buddhism  rather 
than  the  Christian  idea  of  vicarious  redemption. 

In  the  achievement  of  personal  salvation,  the  subject  of  re- 
ligion avails  himself  of  the  Son  of  God,  although  Kant  assumes 
this  to  be  the  Ideal  Man  within  the  individual  rather  than  the 
historic  Christ.  Kant  deals  just  as  freely  with  the  New  Testa- 
ment idea  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  which,  as  we  saw  in  the 
chapter  on  Christianity,  he  made  the  central  teaching  of  Chris- 
tianity. The  idea  is  that  those  who  have  undergone  this  self- 
salvation  through  the  ideal  Son  of  God  become  members  of  an 
ethical  or  spiritual  world-order  whose  end  and  aim  is  righteous- 
ness. In  a  general  way,  Kant  tends  to  associate  his  idea  of  the 
Kingdom  with  that  of  the  Church,  but  it  is  more  the  ideal 
Church  Triumphant  than  the  real  and  historical  Church  Mili- 
tant. The  theological  effect  of  Kant's  philosophy  of  religion,  ap- 
preciable after  Hegelian  theology  had  declined,  was  seen  in 
the  ethical  theology  of  Albrecht  Ritschl. 

HEGEL 

Hegel's  philosophy  of  religion  seems  more  impressive  but  less 
penetrating  than  Kant's.  It  had  a  metaphysical  basis  in  the 


462       RELIGIOUS  TREND  OF  MODERN  LIFE 

Hegelian  idea  of  the  Absolute,  which  became  the  God  of  re- 
ligion, just  as  it  had  historical  scope  in  the  development  of 
oriental  religion,  in  which  Hegel  found  the  awakening  of  the 
finite  spirit  to  its  real  nature  as  that  of  Absolute  Spirit.  The 
manner  in  which  this  religious  program  is  carried  out  involves 
Hegel  in  a  kind  of  higher  psychology  of  history.  With  all  of  the 
oriental  faiths  in  his  hand  as  so  many  skeins  of  spiritual  life, 
Hegel  proceeded  to  weave  them  into  the  pattern  of  his  absolute 
idealism,  indifferent  to  the  thought  that  the  colors  might  not 
match  nor  the  pattern  be  suitable.  No  religious  faith  except  the 
culminating  one,  still  less  any  individual  adherent  to  any  cult, 
could  derive  any  more  satisfaction  than  the  vague  feeling  that  he 
was  perhaps  a  single  thread  or  knot  in  the  terrestrial  tapestry. 

The  achievement  of  this  colossal  scheme  of  spiritual  life  is 
through  the  vast  systems  of  oriental  faith.  Hegel  takes  these  an- 
cient beliefs,  revivifies  them  through  his  system  of  Spirit,  and 
then  arranges  them  after  the  manner  of  his  threefold  plan:  the 
Religion  of  Nature,  the  Religion  of  Spiritual  Individuality,  Ab- 
solute Religion.  The  organized  forms  of  Natural  Religion  are 
exemplified  in  Confucianism,  the  religion  of  measure;  Brahman- 
isrn,  the  religion  of  fantasy;  and  Buddhism,  the  religion  of  ab- 
sorption. There  must  be  a  transition  to  the  Religion  of  Spiritual 
Individuality  and  this  is  found  in  the  threefold  form  of  the  Per- 
sian religion  of  dualism,  the  Syrian  religion  of  pain,  and  the 
Egyptian  religion  of  mystery.  According  to  the  magnificent 
plan  conjured  up  by  this  Absolute  idealist,  it  was  necessary  for 
the  Absolute  in  its  self-realization  to  break  with  nature  in  the 
form  of  dualism,  suffer  the  pain  of  this  diremption,  and  then 
brood  over  the  mystery  of  the  evil  involved  in  it.  Then  the  way 
for  independent  individuality  on  the  part  of  the  Absolute  was 
prepared.  Now,  Hegel  speaks  as  though  this  had  actually  taken 
place  in  history. 

The  Religions  of  Spiritual  Individuality  are  three  in  number: 
the  Hebrew  religion  of  majesty,  the  Grecian  religion  of  beauty, 
and  the  Roman  religion  of  utility.  In  these  ancient  cults  the 
Absolute  is  individualized,  and  thus  realizes  that  it  is  not  one 
with  itself;  hence  it  must  return  unto  itself  in  the  form  of  Ab- 
solute Religion  or  Christianity,  When  one  considers  such  a 


HEGEL  463 

speculative  system  as  Hegel's  he  is  led  to  wonder  whether  the 
author  of  it  means  that  the  Absolute  actually  passes  through  these 
stages  or  whether  it  merely  seems  so  to  the  mind  of  the  specula- 
tive thinker.  This  doubt  led  to  the  division  of  Hegel's  system 
into  two  schools,  the  right  and  the  left.  According  to  the  Right 
School,  the  evolution  of  the  Absolute  was  only  an  idealistic  way 
of  representing  the  relation  of  God  to  history.  According  to  the 
Left  School,  the  Hegelian  idea  is  to  be  understood  realistically, 
so  that  the  historical  course  of  things  is  to  be  understood  as  the 
actual  development  of  spiritual  life,  in  which  the  highest  form 
of  that  life  is  to  be  esteemed  God.  This  bold  conception  fitted  in 
but  none  too  well  with  the  Christian  idea  of  the  incarnation  of 
God  in  Christ. 

The  effect  of  Hegel's  philosophy  of  religion,  as  indeed  of  his 
whole  system  of  speculation,  was  to  detach  the  intellect  from 
both  metaphysical  objects  and  the  facts  of  history  and  deliver 
it  over  to  a  flexible  but  indefinite  realm  of  "  Spirit."  Apparently 
truth  could  be  found  apart  from  objective  realities.  David 
Friedrich  Strauss  (1808-1874)  took  advantage  of  this  in  writ- 
ing his  famous  Life  of  Jesus  (1835).  In  this  work,  Strauss  as- 
serted that  the  Gospels  were  a  collection  of  myths  that  had 
grown  up  in  primitive  Christian  communities  and  further  gave 
the  impression  that,  in  his  mind,  the  person  of  Jesus  himself 
was  a  mythical  rather  than  a  historical  character.  In  a  similar 
manner,  Ludwig  Feuerbach  (1804-1872)  made  a  spiritualistic 
or  psychological  application  of  Hegel's  idea  that  the  Absolute 
comes  to  consciousness  in  man  so  that  man,  or  humanity,  is  the 
real  object  of  religious  thought  and  worship,  or  homo  homini 
deus.  Since  God  is  the  objectification  of  man's  thought  of  the 
Absolute,  there  is  no  worship  but  that  of  humanity.10  Hence, 
as  Max  Stirner  suggested  in  criticizing  Feuerbach,  no  longer  do 
we  say,  "  God  is  love,"  but  "  Love  is  divine."  Something  not 
wholly  unlike  this  is  being  attempted  today  in  connection  with 
social  religion.  In  his  own  day,  Feuerbach's  ideas  were  readily 
taken  up  and  spread  by  the  political  revolutionary  leaders  in 
Germany  and  by  the  radical  socialist  factions  working  toward 
the  abolishing  of  capitalism. 

10  The 'Essence  o]  Christianity  (1841). 


464       RELIGIOUS  TREND  OF  MODERN  LIFE 

SCHLEIERMACHER 

Schleiermacher's  Discourses  on  Religion  (1788)  appeared  be- 
fore Hegel's  Philosophy  of  Religion,  but  it  is  most  convenient  to 
consider  it  last,  since  the  logical  position  of  Schleiermacher  is 
between  Kant  and  Hegel.  In  assuming  the  attitude  that  religion 
is  a  matter  of  feeling,  Schleiermacher  finds  it  necessary  to  show 
that  religion  is  not  a  way  of  doing,  as  Kant  had  indicated,  or  a 
way  of  thinking,  as  Hegel  was  to  point  out.  Schleiermacher  be- 
gins by  attacking  the  metaphysical  ideal  of  religion,  but  can  do 
little  more  than  say  that  "  quantity  of  knowledge  is  not  quantity 
of  piety."  It  was  as  though  he  were  imitating  St.  Paul's  state- 
ment: "Though  I  have  all  knowledge  and  understand  all  mys- 
teries and  have  not  charity  it  profiteth  me  nothing."  In  a  parallel 
manner,  he  attacks  the  notion  that  religion  is  a  matter  of  moral 
conduct  by  stating  that  morality  comes  upon  the  soul  in  a  state 
of  activity,  religion  in  a  state  of  passivity.  From  this,  although  it 
appeared  in  a  later  work,  came  the  definition  of  religion  as  a 
feeling  of  absolute  dependence. 

But  Schleiermacher  really  did  more  than  distinguish  religion 
from  metaphysics  and  morality;  he  gave  it  a  positive  content. 
Thus  he  speaks  of  religion  as  "intuition  and  feeling,"  which 
makes  it  different  from  thought  and  action.  In  a  manner  some- 
what more  definite,  he  referred  to  religion  as  "  sense  and  taste 
for  the  infinite."  u  His  general  conception  of  religion  was  that 
of  pietism  and  romanticism.  It  was  of  value  in  identifying  the 
inner  spring  of  religious  consciousness,  but  not  so  effective  in 
indicating  how  this  consciousness  expresses  itself  in  thought  and 
deed.  In  like  manner,  it  was  of  value  in  enhancing  the  content 
of  religion  but  not  calculated  to  produce  any  system  of  re- 
ligious thought  or  a  theology. 

CONFLICT  OF  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  IN  AMERICA 

After  the  death  of  Hegel  in  1831,  his  philosophy  declined  and 
fell  into  disrepute  because  of  the  radical  activities  of  the  Left 
School  of  the  system.    The  place  of  idealism  was  taken  by  ma- 
11  Discourses  on  Religion,  tr.  Oman,  Discourse  II. 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  465 

terialism,  and  religious  thought,  which  had  been  rationalistic  and 
philosophical,  changed  into  the  conflict  between  science  and 
religion.  This  was  conducted  on  the  scientific  side  by  Comte, 
Spencer,  Huxley,  and  Haeckel;  its  history  was  written  by  John 
William  Draper  (1811-1882)  in  his  History  of  the  Conflict  be- 
tween Religion  and  Science  (1874),  Andrew  D.  White  (1832- 
1918)  in  his  Warfare  of  Science  and  Religion  (1896),  and  £mile 
Boutroux  (1845-1921)  in  his  Science  and  Religion  (1909).  The 
conflict  was  an  unsatisfactory  one  since  the  scientific  opponent  of 
religion,  especially  in  the  case  of  Comte  and  Spencer,  was  not  the 
master  of  any  exact  science,  while  the  average  defender  of  the 
faith,  like  Mr.  Gladstone  and  Mr.  Bryan,  was  a  decided  lay- 
man in  both  fields  of  the  controversy.  Moreover,  in  the  XlXth 
century,  both  science  and  religion  suffered  from  a  dogma- 
tism which  is  now  quite  foreign  to  them.  At  the  beginning 
of  the  controversy  nearly  a  century  ago,  it  was  a  matter  of  re- 
ligion or  science,  whereas  now  it  is  the  problem  of  religion 
and  science.  Between  these  two  contrasted  phases  of  the  move- 
ment there  grew  up,  beginning  with  Spencer,  the  science  of 
religion. 

Is  there  a  conflict  between  religion  and  science  as  such  or  is 
it  merely  a  matter  of  conflicting  opinions  between  those  whom 
William  James  called  "  tender  minded  "  and  "  tough  minded  " 
people?  Apparently  there  is  a  real  conflict  akin  to  what  Kant 
called  an  "antinomy,"  or  an  inevitable  difference  between  an 
idealistic  and  a  materialistic  view  of  the  world.  How  does  this 
arise?  It  might  seem  to  arise  all  along  the  line  where  the  forces 
of  religious  belief  and  scientific  measurement  are  drawn  up 
against  each  other,  but  in  reality  it  does  not.  For  there  is  no 
conflict  between  religion  and  mathematics,  no  reason  for  choos- 
ing between  God  and  gravity.  The  conflict  in  question  concerns 
man  and  those  sciences  that  bear  upon  him  and  his  place  in  the 
universe.  It  has  focused  upon  the  sciences  of  astronomy  and 
biology;  it  has  assumed  a  humanistic  if  not  an  egotistic  character. 
In  the  controversy,  we  observe  man  attempting  to  preserve  his 
dignity  after  the  planet  earth  had  been  placed  in  an  inconspicu- 
ous position  and  man's  origin  on  the  earth  connected  with  the 
origin  of  terrestrial  life  generally.  Tte  enemies  of  religion  have 

S.T. — 31 


466       RELIGIOUS  TREND  OF  MODERN  LIFE 

been  Copernicus  and  Darwin,  or  more  accurately  Galileo  and 
Huxley,  who  made  their  vast  views  accessible  to  the  popular 
mind. 

ASTRONOMY 

Modern  astronomy  was  calculated  to  degrade  the  value  of  man 
rather  than  to  destroy  the  idea  of  God.  Copernicus,  the  founder 
of  it,  was  a  religious  man,  held  the  office  of  a  secular  canon  in 
the  Church,  and  dedicated  his  De  Revolutionibus  Orbium  to 
none  other  than  Pope  Paul  III.  Two  generations  later,  the  new 
astronomy  was  taken  up  by  two  men  who  were  much  better 
scientists  than  Copernicus;  one  was  Kepler,  who  by  discovering 
the  laws  of  planetary  motion  placed  the  system  upon  a  mathemati- 
cal basis.  This  supreme  act  caused  no  religious  controversy,  still 
less  did  it  result  in  persecution  for  its  author.  The  other  ex- 
ponent of  the  new  system  was  Galileo,  who  popularized  what 
was  really  a  question  for  mathematical  experts.  Worse  than 
that,  Galileo  treated  with  scorn  and  subjected  to  satire  any  one 
who  persisted  in  the  more  conservative  view.  It  was  this  literary 
touch  more  than  any  scientific  theory  that  got  Galileo  into 
difficulty.  For  Pope  Urban,  who  as  Cardinal  Barberini  had 
formerly  been  a  friend  and  admirer  of  the  brilliant  physicist, 
assumed  that  Galileo  had  satirized  him  in  the  character  of 
Simplicio,  in  the  Dialogue  between  the  Copernican,  Ptolemaic, 
and  Aristotelian  astronomers.  The  result  was  as  unfortunate  for 
Galileo  as  his  attack  had  been  undignified.  His  "  imprisonment," 
however,  amounted  to  little  more  than  retirement,  first  at  Siena, 
then  at  Florence.  Thus  what  was  really  a  conflict  between  two 
conceptions  of  the  universe  amounted  to  little  more  than  a  quarrel 
between  two  men.  At  the  present  time,  we  have  grown  ac- 
customed to  the  new  celestial  order  and,  marvelous  to  relate,  the 
new  physics  of  Relativity  makes  it  possible  to  resume  the  old 
geocentric  point  of  view  provided  we  will  assume  that  it  is  only 
the  relative  viewpoint  of  the  observer. 

It  was  the  geology  and  the  biology  of  the  XlXth  rather  than 
the  astronomy  of  the  XVIth  century  that  brought  about  the 
conflict  between  science  and  religion.  The  new  view  of  the 
earth  with  its  gradual  evolutions  seemed  more  fatal  to  faith  than 


BIOLOGY  AND  EVOLUTION  467 

the  new  theory  of  the  heavens  with  the  eternal  revolutions  of  the 
stars.  There  was  more  than  one  reason  for  this.  In  the  first 
place,  it  was  more  difficult  to  deny  the  mathematics  of  Coperni- 
cus and  Kepler  than  the  geological  and  biological  theories  of 
Lyell  and  Darwin.  Then,  the  Copernican  astronomy  appeared 
at  a  time  when  the  range  of  popular  education  did  not  compare 
with  that  of  three  centuries  later,  so  that  in  comparison  with 
the  many  who  appreciated  the  significance  of  evolution  there 
were  few  who  realized  the  meaning  of  the  new  astronomy.  Be- 
sides these  considerations,  it  may  be  added  that,  even  with  the 
earth  as  an  insignificant  dwelling  place,  man  could  still  preserve 
his  dignity  and  dream  of  his  destiny.  Moreover,  the  proponents 
of  the  new  astronomy,  Copernicus,  Kepler,  Newton,  were  re- 
ligious men  who  looked  upon  the  new  system  of  the  heavens  in 
a  theistic  manner.  Hence  the  original  conflict  between  science 
and  religion  was  little  more  than  a  private  quarrel  between  such 
scientists  as  Galileo  and  Bruno  and  the  Church.  Not^so,  how- 
ever, in  the  case  of  evolution. 

BIOLOGY  AND  EVOLUTION 

The  significance  of  this  theory  was  at  once  appreciated  as 
something  disastrous  to  man's  belief  in  his  divine  destiny;  it  was 
just  as  destructive  of  the  religious  idea  of  a  divine  design  in  the 
universe.  Man  himself  was  involved  in  the  new  theory,  which 
attempted  to  account  for  his  origin  far  back  in  the  history  of 
nature  and  in  connection  with  the  existence  of  the  lower  animals. 
To  this  day,  especially  after  the  revival  of  the  controversy  in 
connection  with  the  famous  Dayton  trial  and  what  led  up  to 
it,  there  is  repugnance  to  a  scientific  theory  on  the  ground  that 
it  implies  an  ape-ancestry  for  mankind.  Of  course  it  can  be 
pointed  out  that  the  idea  of  human  evolution  with  its  notion 
of  a  lowly  ancestry  for  man  is,  as  it  were,  a  democratic  view  of 
humanity;  it  can  be  suggested  that,  with  evolution  going  on  in 
both  nature  and  society,  there  is  the  prospect  of  a  better  future 
for  the  human  race;  but  such  vast  conceptions  of  past  and  future 
have  never  been  stimulating  to  the  faith  of  those  who  live  in 
the  present. 


468       RELIGIOUS  TREND  OF  MODERN  LIFE 

Since  we  are  inclined  to  scoff  at  "  tender  minded  "  people,  it 
may  be  well  to  recall  that  such  tender  mindedness  was  peculiar 
to  Darwin  himself.  Apparently  he  regretted  the  consequences 
o£  his  own  theory  of  natural  selection  since,  as  he  said,  it 
"  placed  man  in  the  same  predicament  with  the  other  animals." 
Darwin  wished  to  view  man  in  detachment  from  the  animal 
world  generally  and  said:  "If  I  saw  an  angel  come  down  to 
teach  us  good,  and  I  was  convinced  from  others  seeing  him  that 
I  was  not  mad,  I  should  believe  in  design.  If  man  was  made  of 
brass  or  iron  and  in  no  way  connected  with  any  other  organism 
which  had  ever  lived,  I  should  perhaps  be  convinced." 12  Dar- 
win did  not  appreciate  the  fact  that  man  is  not  in  the  same 
predicament  with  the  other  animals.  In  the  life  of  man,  as  we 
noted  in  Chapter  II,  there  are  certain  significant  factors  which 
tend  to  make  us  forget  his  animalistic  origin.  Man's  superior 
and  adaptable  brain,  his  faculty  of  spoken  language,  his  in- 
dustry and  art,  his  social  life  and  religion  differentiate  him  so 
fully  from  his  nearest  of  animal  kin  that  we  may  view  him 
about  as  he  was  viewed  in  ancient,  mediaeval,  and  early  modern 
times. 

There  is,  however,  this  difference  between  the  man  of  the  past 
and  -the  man  of  the  present  in  the  way  he  views  himself  today: 
at  the  present  time,  after  the  controversy  over  evolution  and  the 
place  of  man  in  nature,  we  realize  that  the  place  man  occupies 
is  one  that  in  large  measure  he  has  made  for  himself  by  taking 
natural  selection  into  his  own  hands.  Man  has  come  to  realize 
that  the  human  race,  far  from  falling  heir  to  a  terrestrial  estate, 
has  purchased  this  at  the  price  of  human  effort  in  connection  with 
civilization.  Hence  the  reply  to  the  challenge  of  evolution,  if  we 
may  put  it  that  way,  is  not  merely  the  intellectual  elaboration  of 
a  theory  of  evolution  whereby  man  has  attempted  to  draw  a 
circle  around  the  question  of  his  own  origin;  it  is  a  reply  in  terms 
of  effort,  the  effort  of  the  will  in  the  humanizing  and  civilizing  of 
the  world.  We  cannot  prove  man's  moral  dignity  by  speculating 
about  it;  we  can,  however,  promote  his  moral  nature  by  the 
exercise  of  ethical  effort. 

From  the  foregoing  it  will  be  seen  that  modern  religious  thought 

12  Life  and  Letters  of  Darwin,  cd.  by  Francis  Darwin  (1887). 


HIGHER  CRITICISM  469 

in  the  last  three  hundred  years  has  passed  through  the  stages  of 
theology,  philosophy,  and  science.  These  periods  we  have  ob- 
served in  the  history  of  English  Deism,  the  development  of  the 
German  philosophy  of  religion,  and  the  Anglo-American  con- 
flict between  religion  and  science.  But  there  have  been  other 
and  less  conceptual  forms  of  religious  thought;  we  observe  these 
in  the  higher  criticism  of  Biblical  literature,  the  historical  life 
of  Christ,  the  essence  of  Christianity,  the  study  of  comparative 
religion,  the  psychology  of  religion,  and  religious  education. 
These  may  be  less  impressive  forms  of  religious  thinking,  but  they 
are  no  less  important.  We  will  begin  with  the  development  of 
higher  criticism.13 

HIGHER  CRITICISM 

The  term  "  higher  criticism  "  is  not  used  to  indicate  anything 
superior  on  the  part  of  the  literary  critic;  it  is  called  "  higher  * 
to  distinguish  it  from  "lower  criticism,"  which  deals  with  the 
texts  involved  and  the  most  probable  use,  arrangement,  and  spell- 
ing of  the  words.  The  higher  criticism  concerns  itself  with  the 
date,  authorship,  composition,  and  editing  of  a  religious  docu- 
ment. Before  the  beginning  of  the  modern  period,  there  were 
suggestions  that  some  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  were 
later  than  was  commonly  supposed,  but  the  authorship  of  the 
Pentateuch  was  not  taken  up  until  the  middle  of  the  XVIIIth 
century.  Before  that  time  Luther,  in  the  true  spirit  of  German 
radicalism,  had  suggested  that  it  did  not  make  any  difference 
whether  Moses  was  the  author  of  the  books  that  bore  his  name  or 
not;  in  1670,  Spinoza  had  pointed  out  that  the  Pentateuch  could 
not  have  been  written  by  Moses. 

But  no  other  authorship  was  suggested  until  1753,  when  Jean 
Astruc  in  his  book  called  Conjectures^  introduced  the  names 
of  the  "  Elohist "  and  "  Jahvist,"  to  which  we  referred  in  Chapter 
V  in  dealing  with  the  subject  of  Hebrew  religion.  This  Astruc 
discovered  the  two  different  ways  of  designating  the  divine  name 

13  Article  "  Criticism,"  Encyclopedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics. 

14  Conjectures  sur  les  memoires  originaux  dont  il  paroit  quc  Moyse  $*est  servi 
composer  le  livre  de  la  Genese. 


470      RELIGIOUS  TREND  OF  MODERN  LIFE 

and  concluded  that,  in  the  book  of  Genesis,  Moses  had  made  use 
of  the  writings  of  men  who  had  referred  to  the  Deity  as  Elohim, 
or  God;  Jahweh,  or  Lord;  and  Jahweh-Elohim,  or  Lord  God. 
This  was  indeed  only  a  conjecture,  but  out  of  it  grew  up  the 
modern  system  of  Biblical  criticism.  In  1783  Eichorn,  professor 
at  Jena,  took  the  hint  given  by  Astruc,  introduced  other  docu- 
mentary criteria,  and  thus  carried  the  idea  of  plural  authorship 
throughout  the  entire  Pentateuch.  Like  Astruc,  Eichorn  clung 
to  the  idea  that  Moses  was  at  least  the  editor  of  the  famous  five 
books. 

Criticism  then  went  to  extremes.  Alexander  Geddes,  in  Scot- 
land, abandoned  the  Mosaic  idea  altogether  and,  what  was  far 
worse,  saw  in  the  Pentateuch  nothing  but  a  rough  collection  of 
literary  fragments,  thirty-nine  of  which  he  claimed  to  discover 
in  the  book  of  Genesis  alone.  An  important  step  in  the  direction 
of  sound  criticism  was  taken  in  1798,  at  Jena,  when  Ilgen  dis- 
covered two  writers  who  used  the  term  Elohim  to  describe  the 
Divine  Being;  an  early  Elohist  whose  ideals  were  of  prophetic 
character  and  akin  to  the  writings  of  the  Jahvist,  and  a  later 
Elohist  who  was  so  Levitical  in  tone  as  to  be  known  henceforth 
as  the  Priestly  Writer.  Another  document  was  identified  in 
Jena  when,  in  1805,  DeWette  detached  the  author  of  Deuter- 
onomy and  identified  it  as  a  law-book  which  figured  in  the 
reform  during  the  days  of  King  Josiah,  621  B.C.  When  DeWette 
observed  that  the  style  and  spirit  of  Joshua  were  the  same  as  that 
of  the  Pentateuch,  he  added  it  to  the  collection  and  made  the 
Hexateuch  the  first  literary  unit  of  the  Old  Testament. 

Just  one  hundred  years  after  the  pioneer  effort  of  Astruc,  Hup- 
f  eld  reasserted  the  presence  of  two  Elohistic  writers,  the  propheti- 
cal and  the  priestly,  and  surmised  that  their  documents  along 
with  that  of  the  Jahvist's  had  been  combined  by  an  editor,  or 
redactor  known  to  criticism  as  R.  It  was  in  this  way  that  litera- 
ture of  the  Hexateuch  came  to  be  recognized  as  the  work  of 
certain  anonymous  writers  known  as  J,  E,  P,  D.  Just  as  in  the 
case  of  English  Deism,  which  was  a  purely  dogmatic  movement, 
the  work  of  Biblical  criticism  met  opposition  from  the  conserva- 
tives. This  appeared  in  the  attack  upon  Bishop  Colenso  in 
England  and  Dr.  Briggs  in  America.  Superior  critical  work 


NEW  TESTAMENT  CRITICISM 

was  done  by  Cheyne  and  Driver  there,  by  Harper  and  Toy  here. 
As  a  result,  the  study  of  the  Old  Testament  is  now  an  intelligible 
pursuit  o£  the  student. 


NEW  TESTAMENT  CRITICISM 

In  dealing  with  the  literature  of  the  New  Testament,  our  pro- 
cedure must  follow  the  general  plan  used  with  the  Old  That  is, 
as  we  placed  the  Prophets  before  the  Law,  we  must  put  the 
Epistles  before  the  Gospels.  In  so  doing,  we  make  a  beginning 
about  the  year  50  and  catalogue  the  documents  in  the  order  of 
the  Thessalonian  epistles,  the  Galatian  one,  the  Corinthians,  and 
the  Roman  epistle.  In  the  case  of  the  epistles  to  the  Philippians, 
Colossians,  Ephesians,  and  the  little  letter  to  Philemon,  the  Apostle 
Paul  was  in  prison  at  Rome  and  styles  himself  the  "  prisoner  of 
the  Lord."  The  epistles  to  Timothy  seem  to  be  Pauline  in  tone, 
but  some  of  the  subject  matter  taken  up,  as  the  qualifications  for 
bishops  and  deacons,  indicates  ecclesiastical  developments  that 
took  place  after  the  Apostle's  death.  The  epistles  bearing  the 
name  of  John  bring  up  the  question  whether  the  author  of  these 
letters  was  the  disciple  John,  which  itself  carries  us  on  to  the 
deeper  question  whether  he  was  the  author  of  the  fourth  Gospel. 
In  order  to  see  that  question  aright,  we  must  look  into  the  literary 
history  of  all  four  Gospels. 

So  much  critical  literature  has  been  lavished  upon  the  Gospels 
and  so  great  the  amount  of  controversy  thereby  engendered  that 
we  hesitate  to  make  what  must  be  a  brief  statement  of  the  situa- 
tion in  this  part  of  New  Testament  criticism.  This,  however,  we 
may  follow  to  the  extent  of  observing  that  the  original  Gospel 
was  that  of  Mark,  containing  a  brief  and  somewhat  irregular 
account  of  the  doings  of  Christ  and  the  leading  events  in  his 
career.  It  is  a  valuable  book  of  narratives.  The  Gospel  accord- 
ing to  Matthew  is  characterized  by  the  well-known  discourses 
(the  logia)  of  Christ,  but  does  not  fail  to  contain  most  of  the 
narratives  recorded  in  the  previous  Gospel.  According  to  Renan, 
"  Papias  mentions  two  writings  on  the  acts  and  words  of  Christ: 
first,  a  writing  of  Mark,  the  interpreter  of  the  Apostle  Peter, 
written  briefly,  incomplete  and  not  arranged  in  chronological 


RELIGIOUS  TREND  OF  MODERN  LIFE 

order,  including  narratives  and  discourses  composed  from  the 
information  and  recollections  of  the  Apostle  Peter;  second,  a 
collection  of  sentences  written  in  Hebrew  by  Matthew,  'and 
which  each  one  has  translated  as  he  could.' " 15 

The  Gospel  of  Luke  is  a  much  more  personal  document,  has 
the  distinction  of  being  the  only  book  in  the  Bible  written  by  a 
Gentile,  and  states  in  its  first  verse  that  it  was  made  up  of  records 
made  by  "  many  "  who  were  "  eyewitnesses  and  ministers  of  the 
word."  The  author  himself  is  known  as  the  companion  of  Paul, 
as  also  the  author  of  The  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  The  book  con- 
tains considerable  material  found  in  the  earlier  Gospels  besides 
accounts  of  some  seventeen  parables  not  mentioned  elsewhere. 
It  is  of  unusual  value  in  showing,  as  it  does  in  the  prologue,  how 
a  typical  Gospel,  like  those  of  the  synoptic  writers,  was  composed. 
The  problem  arising  in  dealing  with  these  documents  of  the  New 
Testament  is  not  to  take  a  composite  literary  work  apart,  as  was 
the  case  with  the  Pentateuch,  but  to  fit  them  together  in  a  har- 
monious history.  This  becomes  unusually  difficult  with  the 
fourth  Gospel. 

THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL 

The  Gospel  according  to  John  is  thought  usually  to  differ 
from  the  three  synoptic  ones  in  the  way  that  it  transcends  them 
in  mysticism.  But  none  the  less  does  this  Gospel  excel  them  in 
realism  in  that  it  gives  details  supplied  by  an  eyewitness.  In  the 
cleansing  of  the  temple,  this  author  says  that  Jesus  "made  a 
scourge  of  small  cords;  "  Judas  Iscariot  is  referred  to  as  "  Simon's 
son; "  the  name  of  the  high  priest's  servant  whose  ear  Peter 
cut  of!  is  given  as  "  Malchus;  "  the  other  Judas  is  spoken  of  as 
"not  Iscariot;"  the  time  of  the  final  examination  in  the  trial 
before  Pilate  is  given  as  "  about  the  sixth  hour;  "  and  in  place 
of  the  objective  statement  that  there  was  a  superscription  placed 
upon  the  cross,  this  author  says, "  And  Pilate  wrote  a  title  and  put 
it  on  the  cross,  and  the  writing  was,  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  King 
of  the  Jews,"  and  later  added,  "What  I  have  written,  I  have 
written." 

In  sharp  contrast  with  these  details  noted  by  an  eyewitness,  we 

15  Life  of  Jesus  j  Introduction. 


COMPARATIVE  RELIGION  473 

find  accounts  of  mystical  discourses  absent  from  the  synoptic 
Gospels,  which  do  not  represent  Christ  as  talking  metaphysically 
about  "  life,"  *  truth,"  "  light,"  and  "  the  world."  What  shall  we 
do  with  this  conflict  between  the  first  three  Gospels  and  the 
fourth,  with  the  internal  contrast  between  the  realistic  and  the 
mystical  in  the  fourth  Gospel  itself?  We  can  do  as  several  like 
Renan  have  done;  that  is,  apply  the  analogy  of  the  life  and  death 
of  Socrates  as  reported  by  such  widely  divergent  types  of  mind 
as  the  practical  Xenophon  and  the  dialectical  Plato.  If  we  at- 
tribute historical  accuracy  to  the  author  of  the  Memorabilia  of 
Socrates,  none  the  less  can  we  ascribe  authenticity  to  the  idealized 
account  of  the  master  as  presented  in  the  Dialogues  of  Plato. 
"  The  Author  of  this  Gospel,"  says  Renan,  "  is  in  fact  the  better 
biographer;  as  if  Plato  who,  whilst  attributing  to  his  master 
fictitious  discourses,  had  known  important  matters  about  his 
life  which  Xenophon  ignored  entirely."  16  If  the  Gospels  had 
been  biographies  instead  of  sketches  made  for  those  who  under- 
stood and  appreciated  them,  they  would  give  the  unfortunate 
impression  of  being  able  to  contain  the  transcendent  life.  In 
their  brevity  and  crudeness  is  found  their  chief  glory.  If  a  "  Life 
of  Christ "  were  attempted,  "  I  suppose,"  said  the  writer  of  the 
fourth  Gospel,  "  that  even  the  world  itself  could  not  contain  the 
books  that  should  be  written." 

COMPARATIVE  RELIGION 

The  religious  thought  of  the  present  has  been  broadened  and 
perhaps  deepened  by  the  rise  and  development  of  Comparative 
Religion,  which  took  place  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  XlXth  cen- 
tury. The  European  development  of  Christianity  over  a  period 
of  seventeen  hundred  years,  or  after  the  death  of  the  Aposdes, 
had  caused  the  Christian  to  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  his  was 
originally  an  oriental  faith.  The  Semitic  form  of  his  theology 
had  further  obscured  the  fact  that,  by  historical  right,  he  might 
well  have  inherited  the  faith  and  intellectual  life  of  his  own 
Indo-Germanic  race.  It  has  come  about  that  the  religion  of  the 
western  world  is  Hebrew,  not  Hindu,  in  character.  The  result 
16  /£.,  Introduction. 


474       RELIGIOUS  TREND  OF  MODERN  LIFE 

of  this  historical  fact  has  been  to  make  the  study  of  oriental  re- 
ligions nothing  but  an  academic  exercise.  Hence,  when  a  Swami 
representing  Brahmanism  appeals  to  the  Christian  on  the  basis  of 
similarity  of  race  and  language,  the  effect  is  to  excite  intellectual 
curiosity  rather  than  to  arouse  spiritual  interest.  In  the  instance 
of  the  doctrines  of  theosophy,  Hindu  thought  has  made  some 
impression  upon  the  western  mind. 

The  systematic  study  of  Comparative  Religion  is  associated 
with  the  name  of  F.  Max  Miiller  (1823-1900).  He  owed  his 
training  in  Sanskrit  to  his  German  education,  but  his  work  in 
Comparative  Religion  was  guided  originally  by  Eugene  Burnouf 
(1801-1852),  who  deciphered  the  text  of  the  Zend  Avesta,  which 
Anquetil  du  Perron  had  brought  to  Paris.  The  importance  of 
Max  Miiller  is  found  in  the  way  he  placed  the  materials  of  the 
study  before  those  who  desired  to  make  a  historical  study  of 
religion.  In  1875  he  began  editing  the  Sacred  Boo\s  of  the  East, 
which  work  he  continued  until  his  death.  As  the  result  of  this 
effort,  the  student  of  Comparative  Religion  has  access  to  some 
fifty-one  volumes  of  Sanskrit,  Pali,  Zend,  and  Chinese  religious 
literature.  Among  others  who  advanced  the  study  were  Cornelis 
P.  Tiele,  whose  Outlines  of  the  History  of  Religion  were  trans- 
lated into  English  in  1877,  *&&  P-  D.  C.  de  la  Saussaye,  whose 
Manual  of  the  Science  of  Religion  was  translated  in  1891.  The 
study  of  oriental  faith  was  made  popular  by  James  Freeman 
Clark's  Ten  Great  Religions  (1871).  Interest  in  the  study,  which 
is  less  acute  than  in  the  XlXth  century,  was  aroused  by  the 
World's  Congress  of  Religions  at  Chicago  in  1893. 

The  historical  method  followed  in  the  study  of  Comparative 
Religion  has  not  been  such  as  to  yield  the  greatest  amount  of 
religious  value.  That  method  has  been  an  external  and  historical 
rather  than  an  internal  and  spiritual  one.  This  has  resulted  in 
the  separation  of  the  world's  faiths  in  both  space  and  time  in  such 
a  way  as  to  give  sections  of  human  history  instead  of  the  histori- 
cal flux  of  spiritual  life.  Instead  of  trying  to  discover  the  common 
spirit  that  engendered  Judaism,  Brahmanism,  Confucianism,  and 
the  like,  the  student  of  Comparative  Religion  has  contrasted  the 
forms  of  developed  religion.  He  has  compared  the  different 
plants,  as  it  were,  without  seeking  their  common  life,  their  single 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  RELIGION  475 

soil.  This  has  resulted  in  identifying  the  various  species  of  re- 
ligion rather  than  their  common  genus.  The  condition  of  Com- 
parative Religion  is  thus  one  of  spiritual  dilettantism  in  the 
different  dreams  experienced  by  various  races  and  has  produced 
confusion.  What  has  been  its  method?  *> 

Its  method  has  been  static  rather  than  dynamic,  and  when  re- 
ligion is  surveyed  in  the  form  of  the  "  comparative,"  history  be- 
comes a  set  of  sections,  not  a  process  of  various  movements.  This 
has  yielded  an  archaeology  instead  of  a  psychology  of  religion;  it 
has  given  us  the  intellectual  meaning  of  various  oriental  cults 
rather  than  the  motifs  operative  within  them.  Then,  likewise,  in 
ranging  these  religions  side  by  side  for  the  sake  of  comparison, 
it  has  assumed  that  each  existed  in  its  own  right  as  a  separate 
form  of  spiritual  life.  This  has  produced  what  Bergson  in  his 
Creative  Evolution  calls  the  "  cinematographical  illusion,"  or 
artificial  practice  of  making  a  series  of  snapshots  serve  in  place  of 
the  continuous  moving  picture.  A  similar  condemnation  of  this 
practice,  applied  in  particular  to  human  history,  is  to  be  found 
in  Spengler's  Decline  of  the  West.  It  is  in  connection  with  Com- 
parative Religion,  where  we  find  a  detached  Confucianism,  Brah- 
manism,  or  Judaism,  that  this  mechanistic  method  is  misleading. 
The  spirit  of  religion  can  be  appreciated  when  we  observe  the  dis- 
tinctive qualities  of  different  faiths  —  the  domestic  character  of 
Chinese  worship,  the  renunciatory  form  of  Hindu  faith,  and  the 
pietistic  character  of  Biblical  belief.17  It  is  this  vital  view  of  hu- 
man history  that  has  been  lacking  in  the  static  science  of  Com- 
parative Religion.  It  has  given  us  cross  sections  of  human  be- 
lief instead  of  the  linear  development  and  historical  trend. 

THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  RELIGION 

The  psychology  of  religion  has  not  been  more  successful  and, 
like  the  science  of  Comparative  Religion,  it  has  proved  more  aca- 
demic than  constructive.  Apart  from  the  quasi-psychology  of 
Kant,  Hegel,  and  Schleiermacher,  there  was  no  analysis  of  re- 
ligious consciousness  until  the  days  of  Tylor's  Primitive  Culture 
(1871),  Spencer's  Principles  of  Sociology  (1876-1896),  and 

17  Hoyland,  History  as  Direction  (1930),  p.  74. 


RELIGIOUS  TREND  OF  MODERN  LIFE 

Frazer's  The  Golden  Bough  (1890).  These  works,  which  were 
more  anthropological  than  psychological,  dealt  with  man's  primi- 
tive belief.  The  psychology  of  religion  as  such  has  been  pursued 
chiefly  in  America  and  in  France.  In  this  country,  the  most 
thorough  work  on  the  subject  is  James'  Varieties  of  Religious 
Experience  (1902).  Others  that  may  be  mentioned  are  E.  S. 
Ames,  The  Psychology  of  Religious  Experience  (1910);  J.  H. 
Leuba,  A  Psychological  Study  of  Religion  (1912) ;  and  G.  A.  Coe, 
The  Psychology  of  Religion  (1916). 

Even  at  its  best,  when  its  accepted  subject  matter  was  that  of 
consciousness,  modern  psychology  was  in  none  too  good  a  position 
to  grasp  the  subtle  complexities  of  religious  experience  in  the 
race.  Now  that  this  science  is  making  use  of  mechanisms,  as 
the  unconscious  of  Freud  and  the  behavior  of  Watson's  psy- 
chology, it  is  less  likely  to  give  a  good  account  of  the  content  of 
religion,  or  indeed  of  anything  else  peculiar  to  the  human  spirit, 
as  the  aesthetical  and  ethical.  The  subject  of  religion,  which  has 
had  a  long  and  serious  history  in  the  life  of  mankind,  is  not  to  be 
analyzed  as  though  it  were  a  matter  of  sensation  and  feeling. 
Such  a  content  of  experience  as  religion  affords  is  to  be  appre- 
hended in  some  other  way,  perhaps  that  which  the  Germans  refer 
to  as  Geisteswissenschajt,  or  science  of  the  spirit, 

THE  SOCIAL  GOSPEL 

The  present  century  is  witnessing  an  attempt  to  Christianize 
the  world  in  a  secular  and  social  manner.  This  movement  is 
recognized  generally  in  the  form  of  "  The  Social  Gospel."  The 
conception  of  Christianity  that  it  entertains  is  that  of  the  King- 
dom of  God.  This  great  concept  of  Christ's,  analogous  to  the 
Ideal  Republic  of  Plato  and  the  Ethical  Commonwealth  of  Kant, 
is  the  constitution  or  program  of  the  new  religious  movement. 
The  advocate  of  the  Social  Gospel,  however,  is  more  interested 
in  Christian  propaganda  than  philosophy  of  religion,  hence  he 
does  not  take  pains  to  determine  whether  the  Kingdom  is  sup- 
posed to  be  visible  or  invisible,  social  or  spiritual,  a  remote  moral 
influence  or  an  immediate  social  incentive.  In  certain  instances, 
where  the  Social  Gospel  has  bred  Christian  Socialism,  the  im- 


THE  SOCIAL  CREED  477 

pression  is  created  that  the  purpose  of  Christ  was  to  reconstruct 
the  social  order  at  such  time  as  seemed  most  propitious.  Now, 
according  to  the  impromptu  philosophy  of  history  sketched  by 
the  social  evangelist,  that  time  was  the  period  of  our  industrial 
democracy.  "  For  the  first  time  in  religious  history,  we  have  the 
possibility  of  so  directing  religious  energy  by  scientific  knowledge 
that  a  comprehensive  and  continuous  reconstruction  of  social  life 
in  the  name  of  God  is  within  the  bounds  of  human  possibility." 1S 
In  the  pre-social  period,  Christianity  was  so  preoccupied  with 
pietism,  dogmatism,  ecclesiasticism,  and  the  like  that  there  was 
little  or  no  room  for  democratic  doctrine  and  social  service. 
Furthermore,  the  earlier  religious  leader  was  not  in  possession  of 
our  natural  and  social  sciences,  our  politics  and  pedagogy. 

In  considering  the  Biblical  interpretation,  the  ethics,  and  the 
philosophy  of  religion  so  zealously  employed  by  those  who  are 
anxious  to  inaugurate  the  new  Social  Gospel,  one  finds  it  difficult 
to  avoid  certain  disagreeable  impressions.  The  close  connection 
between  Christ  and  the  prophets,  which  the  new  Gospel  attempts 
to  establish,  tends  to  make  both  original  Christianity  and  the  re- 
vival of  it  appear  Jewish  in  form,  gregarious  in  its  conception  of 
humanity,  and  materialistic  in  its  application.  The  ethics  is  such 
as  to  identify  the  moral  with  the  social  without  any  attempt  to 
justify  this  doubtful  conception.  The  practical  effect  of  such  loose 
thinking  is  to  minimize -the  importance  of  the  individual  subject 
of  ethics  and  the  ethical  world-order  to  which,  in  distinction  from 
actual  society,  he  belongs.  The  social  philosophy  of  religion, 
while  not  to  be  criticized  for  ignoring  the  theological  dogmas  of 
orthodoxy,  may  well  be  judged  adversely  for  its  failure  to  sup- 
ply reason  and  faith  with  objects  of  belief  other  than  those  of 
"  society."  It  is  not  sufficient  to  state  that  the  Social  Gospel  is  one 
of  doing,  not  of  thinking.  The  will  stands  in  need  of  the  intellect, 
and  the  doer  of  the  word  must  first  be  a  hearer  of  it. 

THE  SOCIAL  CREED 

Just  what  the  Social  Gospel  has  in  mind  as  its  program  is  not 
always  clear;  it  has  not  yet  called  a  Nicaean  Council.  However,  it 

18  Rauschenbusch,  Christianity  and  the  Social  Crisis  (1911),  p.  209. 


RELIGIOUS  TREND  OF  MODERN  LIFE 

has  not  failed  to  produce  some  sort  of  religio-social  manifesto;  we 
find  it  in  a  statement  drawn  up  under  the  head  of  Social  Ideals  of 
the  Churches.  These  ideals  were  adopted  by  the  First  Quadren- 
nial Meeting  of  the  Federal  Council  of  the  Churches  of  Christ 
in  America  in  1908  and  are  still  in  force,  while  additional  reso- 
lutions are  contemplated  for  the  meeting  in  the  fall  of  1932.  The 
social  creed  of  Protestantism,  which  is  worth  quoting  in  full,  is 
as  follows: 

I.  Equal  rights  and  justice  for  all  men  in  all  stations  of  life. 
II.  Protection  of  the  family  by  the  single  standard  of  purity, 
uniform  divorce  laws,  proper  regulation  of  marriage,  proper 
housing. 

III.  The  fullest  possible  development  of  every  child,  especially 
by  the  provision  of  education  and  recreation. 

IV.  Abolition  of  child  labor. 

V.  Such  regulation  of  the  conditions  of  toil  for  women  as  shall 
safeguard  the  physical  and  moral  health  of  the  community. 
VI  Abatement  and  prevention  of  poverty. 
VII.  Protection  of  the  individual  and  society  from  the  social, 

economic,  and  moral  waste  of  the  liquor  traffic. 
VIII.  Conservation  of  health. 

IX.  Protection  of  the  worker  from  dangerous  machinery. 
X.  The  right  of  all  men  to  the  opportunity  for  self -main- 
tenance, for  safeguarding  this  right  against  encroachments 
of  every  kind,  for  the  protection  of  workers  from  the 
hardships  of  enforced  unemployment. 
XL  Suitable  provision  for  the  old  age  of  the  workers,  and  for 

those  incapacitated  by  injury. 

XII.  The  right  of  employees  and  employers  alike  to  organize; 
and  for  adequate  means  of  conciliation  and  arbitration  in 
industrial  disputes. 

XIII.  Release  from  employment  one  day  in  seven. 

XIV.  Gradual  and  reasonable  reduction  of  hours  of  labor  to  the 
lowest  practicable  point,  and  for  that  degree  of  leisure  for 
all  which  is  a  condition  of  the  highest  possible  human  life. 

XV.  A  living  wage  as  a  minimum  in  every  industry,  and  for 
the  highest  wage  that  each  industry  can  afford. 


HUMANISM 

XVI.  A  new  emphasis  upon  the  application  o£  Christian  prin- 
ciples to  the  acquisition  and  use  of  property,  and  for  the 
most  equitable  division  of  the  product  of  industry  that 
can  ultimately  be  devised. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  since  Christianity  was  not  intended 
to  be  a  monastic  religion,  the  Christian  Church  should  lay  due 
stress  upon  the  idea  of  the  immediate  welfare  of  mankind  in 
connection  with  morality,  health,  economic  existence,  and  the 
like.  The  only  question  is  whether  the  Church  can  promote  these 
causes  directly  by  means  of  a  social  program  or  indirectly  as  the 
result  of  its  original  spiritual  enterprise.  One  who  looks  philo- 
sophically at  the  nature  of  religion  may  be  quite  certain  that  it  is 
not  the  calling  of  the  Church  to  advocate  such  a  proposal  as  that 
of  birth  control.  Indeed,  one  who  takes  such  an  objective  point 
of  view  may  question  whether  the  Church,  considering  itself  a 
body  of  voters  as  well  as  a  body  of  believers,  should  insist  upon 
such  a  political  measure  as  the  XVIIIth  Amendment  to  the  Con- 
stitution. It  is  possible  to  combine  the  spiritual  with  the  social 
in  the  form  of  cause  and  effect,  or  to  look  upon  it  as  a  tree  and  its 
fruits,  without  making  the  spiritual  merely  a  means  to  a  social 
end. 

HUMANISM 

The  most  remote  repercussion  of  the  Deistic  controversy  and 
the  conflict  between  science  and  religion  appears  in  the  religion 
of  Humanism.  Its  general  tendency  seems  to  be  that  of  Ethical 
Culture;  it  bears  some  resemblance  to  the  humanistic  ideals  of 
Ludwig  Feuerbach's  The  Essence  of  Christianity  (1841)  if  not 
those  of  ancient  Epicureanism.  The  creed  that  it  affects  might 
be  summed  up  in  "  I  believe  in  Man."  According  to  the  state- 
ment issued  by  The  First  Humanist  Society  of  New  York,  this 
faith  embodies  the  following  articles: 

"  Humanism  is  a  new  faith  for  the  new  age. 
It  is  an  affirmative,  creative,  inspiring  religion. 
It  keeps  step  with  science. 
It  frees  the  human  spirit  from  superstition  and  servility. 


48o       RELIGIOUS  TREND  OF  MODERN  LIFE 

It  releases  man  from  fear  of  the  supernatural. 

It  transcends  materialism. 

It  is  neither  theistic  nor  atheistic. 

It  approaches  immortality  scientifically. 

It  opens  the  doors  for  progress  in  religion." 

The  characteristic  thing  about  this  project  is  its  attitude  toward 
history.  Humanism  assumes  that  it  is  possible  to  break  with 
the  past  and  begin  de  novo,  presenting  "  a  new  faith  for  a  new 
age."  No  great  amount  of  reflection  is  necessary  to  reveal  the 
idea  that  religion,  like  law  and  art  and  unlike  sciences  and  the 
practice  of  medicine,  is  involved  in  history  and  pushes  forward 
into  the  future  as  it  is  impelled  by  the  force  of  the  past.  The 
past  is  not  something  that  we  have  left  behind  us  with  its  cen- 
turies like  a  series  of  landmarks  along  a  road  that  has  been 
traveled;  it  is  something  that  moves  along  with  us.  The  histori- 
cal view  of  life  tends  to  make  us  intellectually  sympathetic  toward 
humanity  as  a  whole  and  keeps  us  from  being  intrigued  about 
our  own  day  and  generation.  It  is  under  the  influence  of  the 
religious  consciousness  that  we  enter  into  history  and  let  history 
enter  into  us.  Now,  it  is  this  historical  conception  which  is 
pathetically  wanting  in  such  a  well-intentioned  movement  as 
Humanism. 

la  addition  to  its  complacent  conception  of  the  present,  Hu- 
manism indulges  the  idea  that  man  is  adequate  to  his  own  needs. 
Science  can  answer  all  man's  questions,  and  industry  supply  all 
his  needs.  The  issue  involved  in  Humanism  and  similar  move- 
ments can  be  presented  by  quoting  a  rather  rhetorical  sentence 
from  Emerson's  essay  The  Oversoul:  "What  is  the  universal 
sense  of  want  and  of  ignorance  but  the  fine  innuendo  by  which 
the  soul  makes  its  enormous  claim?  "  The  "enormous  claim  " 
of  religion  is  the  existence  of  God  and  the  soul.  The  bases  of 
these  beliefs  is  the  "  universal  sense  of  want  and  of  ignorance." 
The  "  fine  innuendo  "  is  human  faith.  According  to  the  reason- 
ing, or  the  impression  of  Humanism,  the  sense  of  want  and 
ignorance  has  been  dispelled  by  the  theoretical  and  practical 
advance  of  science,  whereby  man  has  become  sufficient  unto 
himself.  According  to  a  more  sober,  more  historical  view  of 


HUMANISM  48Z 

humanity,  science  has  not  and  cannot  answer  all  questions  or 
supply  all  needs.  The  field  which  science  has  chosen  for  its 
investigations  and  inventions,  since  it  is  that  of  immediate  ex- 
perience, is  not  coterminous  or  of  equal  depth  with  the  domain  of 
spiritual  life  wherein  religion  appears  and  operates. 


S.T.— &2 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  PLACE  OF  ART  IN  CONTEMPORARY 
CIVILIZATION 


THE  ART  OF  ARCHITECTURE 

THE  PLACE  OF  ART  IN  CIVILIZATION  HAS  ALREADY  BEEN  RECOG- 
nized.  When  we  were  considering  The  Evolution  of 
Man,  we  observed  that  art  was  one  of  the  various  ways 
in  which  man  sought  to  humanize  his  animal  existence.  Art  in 
the  aesthetic  sense  we  found  to  be  the  primary  quality  of  Greef^ 
Culture  and  we  noted  how,  in  the  case  of  Gothic  architecture 
and  the  poetry  of  Dante,  art  tempered  the  rationalistic  spirit  of 
Scholastic  Culture.  In  still  other  situations  has  the  aesthetic 
spirit  revealed  itself.  Now  we  are  called  upon  to  consider 
whether  this  aesthetic  trend,  so  discernible  in  the  past,  persists 
into  our  own  age  to  make  it  possible  for  us  to  participate  in  the 
spirit  of  the  past  and  enjoy  an  aesthetic  consciousness  in  the 
present.  In  making  this  artistic  inventory,  we  shall  direct  our 
view  along  the  lines  of  history  with  an  eye  to  the  situation  in  the 
present  century  and  shall  do  what  we  can  to  identify  the  artistic 
ideal  in  America.  The  three  spatial  arts  of  architecture,  sculp- 
ture, and  painting,  the  two  temporal  ones  of  poetry  and  music 
still  persist.  With  all  our  modern  ingenuity,  we  have  been  able 
to  invent  no  extra  one. 

The  art  of  architecture  exemplifies  the  spirit  of  civilization  in 
the  adaptation  of  man  to  nature  and  the  adjustment  of  men  to 
one  another.  It  concerns  itself  with  the  physical  principle  of 
gravity  and  the  arrangement  of  men  in  groups,  domestic,  re- 
ligious, political.  Architecture  is  the  expression  of  an  age's  cul- 
ture. We  see  in  typical  structures  the  inherent  difference  between 
Orient  and  Occident,  Greek  and  Roman,  mediaeval  and  modern, 
Europe  and  America.  The  Great  Pyramid,  the  Parthenon,  the 
Roman  Pantheon,  the  Gothic  cathedrals,  St.  Peter's  at  Rome,  St. 
Paul's  in  London,  and  the  Empire  State  Building  in  New  York 
—  the  differences  among  these  are  not  those  of  time  and  place, 

48z 


AMERICAN  ARCHITECTURE 

style  and  material  only;  they  are  differences  in  civilization,  in 
spiritual  life.  How  are  these  divergent  tendencies  to  be  identi- 
fied? 

The  ponderous  Pyramid,  so  laboriously  constructed,  reveals 
a  sense  of  life,  a  form  of  culture  entirely  different  from  the  spirit 
that  built  the  American  skyscraper.  According  to  Hegel,  the 
Pyramid  was  a  monument  to  faith  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul 
and  a  belief  in  salvation  by  works.  The  skyscraper  is  testimony 
to  scientific  skill,  economic  enterprise,  and  belief  in  business. 
The  Parthenon  had  its  specific  application  to  Greek  religion. 
It  was  expressive  of  belief  in  form,  in  beauty  and  proportion, 
and  might  be  taken  to  mean  that  "  beauty  will  save  the  world." 
The  Roman  arch  and  dome  are  suggestive  of  political  enterprise. 
The  arch  so  often  used  for  the  roads  that  led  to  Rome  and  the 
dome  that  rounded  over  the  building  indicate  a  belief  in  cen- 
tralized imperial  power.  The  Gothic  cathedrals,  so  amiable  in 
form,  and  so  like  modern  engineering  in  their  structure,  portray 
the  aspiration  of  the  soul  and  the  power  of  communal  activity. 
In  a  structure  like  St.  Peter's,  we  observe  the  revival  of  paganism 
or  the  desire  for  a  classic  rather  than  a  scholastic  conception  of 
life.  The  touch  of  the  classic  that  one  sees  in  colonial  architec- 
ture with  its  useless  pillars  and  the  French  style  with  its  man- 
sard roof,  both  still  conspicuous  in  the  development  of  Ameri- 
can architecture,  may  be  attributed  to  imitation  rather  than  to 
anything  inventive  or  individual. 


AMERICAN   ARCHITECTURE 

The  tone  of  American  architecture,  betrayed  by  the  skyscraper, 
has  nothing  mystical,  aesthetical,  or  religious  about  it.  The  typi- 
cal office  building  rejoices  in  the  spirit  of  brutal  optimism.  Even 
the  World  War  and  unsettled  conditions  of  peace  have  not  been 
able  to  check  the  confident,  self-assertive  spirit  of  the  modern 
American  builder.  All  architecture  signifies  the  conflict  of  forces 
—  the  downward  drive  of  gravity  and  the  upward  thrust  of  the 
building  material.  This  conflict  between  gravity  and  rigidity  has 
been  met  with  the  column  and  the  arch,  hence  the  Grecian  and 
Gothic  styles.  In  the  case  of  modern  America,  the  structural 


484     ART  IN  CONTEMPORARY  CIVILIZATION 

problem  has  been  solved  and  the  style  determined  by  the  girder. 
The  tall  building  is  erected  in  the  form  of  a  steel  frame  enclosed 
by  comparatively  light  building  material.  The  artistic  justifica- 
tion for  this  style  may  be  found  partly  by  an  analogy  to  the  human 
form,  where  the  tissue  of  the  body  is  supported  by  a  skeletal  struc- 
ture on  which  it  seems  to  be  hung.  It  is  more  adequately  atoned 
for  by  the  physical  fact  that  nature  herself  in  the  case  of  an  ore 
encloses  a  certain  amount  of  metal  in  a  stony  covering.  But,  to 
speak  more  definitely,  it  has  been  the  possibilities  of  engineering 
and  the  exigencies  of  commercial  existence  that  have  brought  the 
skyscraper  into  existence.  Now,  we  cannot  fail  to  observe  the 
presence  of  the  tower-like  building  but  we  are  not  so  observant  of 
its  characteristics.  What  are  the  leading  features  of  contemporary 
architecture  in  America  ? 

The  general  impression  of  size  appears  to  be  the  most  salient 
feature  of  modernist  architecture;  this  shows  specifically  in  the 
vertical  dimension,  or  height.  The  Great  Pyramid  involved  at 
least  as  much  building  material  and  the  Cologne  Cathedral  sug- 
gests as  much  floor  area;  but  the  tallness  of  the  modern  building 
is  its  own  characteristic.  The  ideal  of  altitude  was  attained 
originally  by  the  Eiffel  Tower,  nearly  a  thousand  feet  in  height; 
but  the  modern  tower  of  America  is  still  taller,  as  we  observe  in 
the  Empire  State  Building,  something  less  than  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  high.  Moreover,  the  American  steel  tower  is  enclosed  and 
made  into  the  form  of  a  building  serving  a  commercial  purpose. 
Now,  the  specific  factors  that  characterize  a  modernist  American 
skyscraper  are  physical  and  social;  they  are  concerned  with  the 
building  material  primarily  and  the  practical  purpose,  which  is 
mostly  mercantile.  If  one  is  at  all  cynical,  he  can  refer  to  .such 
a  structure  as  a  temple  to  the  god  Mammon. 

If  one  is  disposed  to  moralize  upon  modernist  architecture,  he 
may  observe  that  there  is  a  certain  structural  sincerity  about  a 
skyscraper  in  that  it  must  abide  by  the  law  of  gravitation  and  the 
nature  of  the  materials  whose  rigidity  seeks  to  satisfy  or  overcome 
that  law.  For  the  most  part,  the  building  is  inwardly  about  as  it 
appears  to  be  outwardly;  the  floors  correspond  to  the  height  of 
the  girders  and  the  architectural  spaces  are  in  harmony  with  the 
structural  divisions.  In  the  Woolworth  Building  in  New  York, 


SCULPTURE  AND  CIVILIZATION  485 

wherein  Gothic  motifs  are  combined  with  Gotham  aims3  this 
correspondence  of  the  structural  with  the  spectacular  is  note- 
worthy. The  modernist  building  as  such  is  no  imitation  of  the 
Gothic  or  any  other  style;  although  it  is  not  without  style,  it  is 
independent  of  stylistic  tradition.  Its  most  obvious  impressions 
are  those  of  the  vertical  line,  the  set-back  form  of  exterior  eleva- 
tion, and  the  necessary  lack  of  cornices.  But  it  is  natural  and  civil 
law  that  have  produced  these  effects,  for  only  as  the  structure  con- 
forms to  the  law  of  gravitation  and  the  building  code  can  it  be 
erected.  Decorations,  instead  of  being  something  added  by  sculp- 
tor and  painter,  are  integral  parts  of  the  building  and  depend  for 
their  effect  upon  the  inherently  decorative  character  of  the  materi- 
als, metal,  stone,  and  plaster,  involved.  The  total  effect  of  the 
modern  building  is  that  of  the  gigantic  and  comely. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  modern  architecture  in  America 
represents  national  ambition  just  as  it  reveals  the  trend  of  the 
times.  It  expresses  industrial  democracy.  But  when  we  compare 
the  American  skyscrapers  of  the  XXth  century  with  the  Gothic 
cathedrals  of  the  XHIth,  we  are  bound  to  wonder  at  the  compari- 
son. Both  represent  technical  skill  In  engineering;  both  alike  re- 
flect the  social  and  cooperative  spirit  of  the  respective  centuries. 
In  both  we  observe  the  organization  of  labor;  there  in  the  form  of 
guilds,  here  in  the  form  of  unions.  The  main  difference  appears 
in  the  purposes  of  the  two  structures.  The  Gothic  sought  the 
expression  of  religious  aspiration  which,  however,  had  little  that 
was  sanctimonious  about  it,  for  the  Gothic  movement  was  as 
much  social  as  spiritual.  The  spirit  of  Gotham  is  of  another  sort. 
It  is  that  of  faith  and  the  future;  faith  in  man  and  a  future  which 
extends  into  the  next  generation  rather  than  into  eternity. 

SCULPTURE  AND  CIVILIZATION 

The  art  of  sculpture  is  significant  of  civilization  but  does  not 
appear  to  lend  itself  with  ease  to  cultural  changes.  This  is  largely 
because  of  the  usual  materials  employed  —  wood,  stone,  and 
metal.  In  like  manner,  there  is  a  limit  set  by  the  ordinary  subject 
matter,  which  is  that  of  the  human  form.  The  work  of  the  plastic 
artist  is  beset  with  difficulty  since  his  material  is  inflexible,  and 


486     ART  IN  CONTEMPORARY  CIVILIZATION 

even  when  the  sculptor  attains  to  fullness  of  expression,  as  he  did 
in  the  days  of  the  classic  Greeks,  there  are  always  the  limits  pre- 
scribed by  the  human  form.  Hence  we  cannot  expect  such  free- 
dom as  we  observe  in  the  other  spatial  art,  that  of  painting,  still 
less  the  free  play  allowed  by  such  fluid  arts  as  poetry  and  music. 
Sculpture  is  bound  to  maintain  a  certain  standard  in  size,  and 
form;  it  requires  the  touch  of  the  heroic,  as  this  is  found  in  its 
development  from  the  Panathenaic  Procession  that  Pheidias  de- 
picted upon  the  frieze  of  the  Parthenon  to  the  heroic  figures 
designed  in  our  day  by  Gutzon  Borglum.  However,  the  sculp- 
tor's art  has  not  failed  to  lend  itself  to  the  expression  of  cultural 
periods  in  their  characteristic  forms. 

The  grotesque  idea  of  life  with  an  accompanying  sense  of 
mystery  makes  its  appearance  in  the  monstrous  figure  of  the 
Egyptian  Sphinx.  In  such  a  figure  is  a  confession  that  man  has 
not  yet  arrived  at  the  idea  of  humanity  but  intuits  its  being  in 
relation  to  animal  existence.  In  clear  and  most  pleasing  contrast 
to  the  art  of  the  Nile  is  the  perfect  humanism  of  Greek  sculpture. 
It  was  nobly  crude  in  the  case  of  Myron's  Discus  Thrower,  classi- 
cally perfect  with  Pheidias,  beautiful  with  the  Hermes  of  Prax- 
iteles, and  still  human  and  beautiful  in  the  decadence  which 
produced  the  Laocoon  and  Venus  of  Milo.  Roman  sculpture 
could  not  improve  upon  the  Greek  but  it  could  and  did  add 
dignity  and  gave  the  art  a  patriotic  touch. 

Gothic  sculpture  suffers  from  comparison  with  the  Greek  as 
also  from  the  cathedrals  it  adorned.  However,  there  was  a  robust 
realism  about  this  type  of  plastic  that  might  be  supposed  to  devote 
itself  to  a  more  sacred  form  of  sculpture.  In  French  Gothic  it 
became  independent  art.  But  it  was  not  until  the  classic  tradition 
was  revived,  as  it  was  in  the  Italian  Renaissance,  that  sculpture 
became  a  fine  art  again.  This  it  was  made  in  the  Xlllth  century 
by  Niccola  Pisano  with  his  pulpit  of  the  Baptistery  at  Pisa.  The 
bronze  gates  of  the  Baptistery  at  Florence,  the  "  gates  of  Paradise," 
by  Ghiberti  (1378-1455),  the  David  and  John  the  Baptist  of 
Donatello  (c.  1386-1466),  and  the  Singing  Boys  of  Luca  della 
Robbia  (1399-1482)  may  be  compared  generally  with  classic  sculp- 
ture, certainly  with  the  Roman.  The  climax  of  Renaissance 
plastic  appeared  in  Michelangelo.  In  the  case  of  this  supreme 


MODERN  SCULPTURE  487 

artist,  we  find  the  inner  genius  of  the  Greeks  but  not  the  outer 
form,  for  the  creative  power  of  the  Italian  master  drove  him  into 
designing  forms  which  have  nothing  classic  about  them.  This 
we  observe  in  his  commanding  figure  of  Moses,  which  is  in  no 
wise  comparable  to  the  Zeus  of  Pheidias;  in  like  manner,  his 
statues  of  the  Medici,  with  the  accompanying  figures  of  Day  and 
Night,  Dawn  and  Evening  lack  Grecian  placidity  and  are  satu- 
rated with  the  romantic  and  pessimistic.  The  psychology  of  these 
shapes  is  that  of  striving  and  suffering;  it  betokens  the  Christian 
rather  than  the  classic  conception  of  life. 

MODERN  SCULPTURE 

Sculpture  since  the  death  of  Michelangelo  has  not  been  impres- 
sive as  an  art  but  has  conveyed  the  significance  of  succeeding 
cultural  periods.  Lorenzo  Bernini  (1598-1680),  the  last  of  the 
great  school  of  the  Renaissance,  became  Baroque  and  rendered 
sculpture  rather  theatrical.  The  early  half  of  the  XVIIIth  century, 
an  unaesthetic  period,  witnessed  a  continuance  of  the  flamboyant 
spirit  but  underwent  a  happy  change  in  Houdon  (1741-1828)  and 
Canova  (1757-1822),  who  tended  to  restore  the  classic  ideal  of 
form.  A  certain  amount  of  vigor  was  driven  into  the  art  by 
Thorwaldsen  (1770-1844),  whose  Lion  of  Lucerne  rejoices  in 
realism.  In  England,  Alfred  Stevens  (1818-1875)  gave  tne  sculp- 
ture of  the  XlXth  century  a  suggestion  of  Michelangelo  in  the 
XVIth,  as  one  observes  in  his  monument  to  Wellington  in  St. 
Paul's  Cathedral.  The  culmination  of  the  art  founded  by  the 
Greeks  appears  in  Rodin  (1840-1917),  who  seems  to  have  strained 
his  material  for  the  sake  of  giving  it  unusual  expression  and 
symbolic  meaning.  The  psychological  touch  applied  by  Rodin 
appears  in  The  Kiss  and  The  Thinker,  statues  which  carry  the 
mind  away  from  the  subject  matter  and  the  form  of  the  figure 
to  a  story  it  is  supposed  to  relate. 

American  sculpture,  realizing  the  patriotic  phase  of  the  art,  has 
revealed  itself  in  statues  of  military  and  naval  heroes  and  states- 
men, as  these  are  found  in  Washington  and  many  municipal 
centers.  In  the  classic  style,  Hiram  Powers  (1805-1873)  carved 
the  Gree\  Slave,  a  figure  which  tended  to  popularize  the  art. 


ART  IN  CONTEMPORARY  CIVILIZATION 

Saint-Gaudens  (1848-1907)  enjoys  a  great  reputation  as  a  plastic 
artist,  yet  his  only  nude  figure  was  the  bronze  statue  of  Diana, 
famous  for  its  position  at  the  top  of  the  tower  of  the  old  Madison 
Square  Garden.  The  robust  and  colossal  in  sculpture  was  the 
extensive  relief  which  Gutzon  Borglum  (1876-  )  began  to 
carve  in  the  face  of  Stone  Mountain,  Georgia.  Lorado  Taft 
(1860-  )  has  gone  at  the  art  with  chisel  and  pen  and  in  ad- 
dition to  patriotic  pieces  and  symbolic  forms,  like  The  Blind,  has 
written  an  authoritative  work,  The  History  of  American  Sculp- 
ture. Among  the  women  sculptors  of  America  are  Janet  Scudder 
(1873-  ),  famous  for  her  fountains,  as  also  Gertrude  Vander- 
bilt  Whitney  with  her  Aztec  Fountain  and  Fountain  of  El 
Dorado. 

Turning  points  in  sculpture  were  reached  after  the  death  of 
Praxiteles  in  the  fourth  century  B.C.,  Michelangelo  in  1564,  Hou- 
don  in  1828,  and  Rodin  in  1917.  The  tendency  of  the  art  is  to 
yield  the  ideal  of  massiveness  for  the  impressionism  and  expres- 
sionism peculiar  to  modern  painting,  as  also  to  return  to  the 
primitive.  "  Just  now,"  says  Lorado  Taft,  "  the  archaistic  fever  is 
well-nigh  universal;  buttonhole  eyes,  macaroni  hair,  washboard 
drapery  —  all  are  de  rigueur  in  up-to-date  galleries  of  sculpture. 
But  in  spite  of  all  this  wave  of  childish  imitation  there  has  been 
in  some  respects  a  notable  advance.  .  .  .  Mass  is  once  more  con- 
sidered and  despite  an  affectation  of  naivete,  there  is  a  return  to 
the  fundamental  principles  of  good  sculpture."  *  It  is  a  question, 
however,  whether  the  modern  conception  of  matter,  so  wanting 
in  the  idea  of  solidity,  and  the  prevailing  temper  of  the  day,  as 
fully  devoid  of  stability,  can  offer  much  to  the  classic  art  of 
sculpture. 

How  PAINTING  PICTURES  CIVILIZATION 

The  place  of  the  painter  in  history  may  seem  to  be  that  of  an 
illustrator  in  a  book;  the  story  unfolds  and  the  artist  simply 
pictures  it.  But  the  function  of  painting  is  something  more  ener- 
getic, for  the  artist  feels  life  as  it  is  being  lived  and  then  expresses 
it.  The  Italian  primitive  painters  did  more  than  paint  pictures 
1  The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture,  p.  41. 


"  WOLF  AND  Fox  HUNT."    RUBENS 


44  CHRIST  ON  LAKE  GENNESARET."    DELACROIX 
(facing  page  489) 


HOW  PAINTING  PICTURES  CIVILIZATION    489 

of  the  Madonna  who  was  being  worshiped;  they  also  were  among 
the  devotees;  their  belief  they  expressed  by  means  of  the  brush* 
The  painters  of  the  Renaissance  did  more  than  copy  ancient 
models;  far  more  than  that  they  felt  the  creative  spirit  that  had 
animated  ancient  Greece.  The  romantic  artists  did  not  apply 
color  just  because  Romanticism  was  a  roseate  view  of  life,  but 
they  themselves  felt  the  glow  of  warmth  that  the  early  XlXth 
century  was  experiencing.  The  painter  of  today  does  not  confine 
his  efforts  to  illustrating  the  confusion  in  civilization;  he  feels 
this  confusion  himself,  suffers  from  or  glories  in  it,  and  then  paints 
his  inchoate  canvases  as  forms  of  hectic  self-expression.  Modern 
painting  in  the  sense  of  that  which  has  taken  the  place  of  classic 
tradition  is  thus  an  expression  of  modern  life  —  romantic,  natural- 
istic, impressionistic,  expressive.  Our  civilization  and  our  studios 
are  in  something  like  concord. 

When  we  approach  modern  art  in  the  strict  sense  of  that  term, 
we  can  make  a  helpful  distinction  by  saying,  in  the  Renaissance 
there  were  "  artists  "  but  now  we  have  "  painters."  This  contrast 
may  be  heightened  by  observing  that  the  artist-painter  must  con- 
sider both  subject  matter  and  technical  treatment;  the  matter 
and  the  manner,  the  way  the  picture  will  look  in  a  gallery  com- 
pared with  the  way  it  is  painted  in  the  studio.  In  addition  to 
these  aesthetical  comparisons,  the  ethical  one  of  altruism  and  ego- 
ism may  be  mentioned.  What  is  the  difference  in  results  ?  The 
older  artist  paid  careful  attention  to  his  subject  matter  and  con- 
sidered how  his  painting  would  look  upon  exhibition.  The  newer 
painter-artist  flouts  the  subject  for  the  sake  of  treatment  and  seems 
to  be  painting  for  himself  in  his  studio*  The  difference  is  that 
of  "illustration"  and  a  "canvas."  We  might  go  so  far  as  to 
venture  the  suggestion  that  one  can  tell  the  difference  between 
the  two  types  of  painting  by  noting  the  amount  of  pigment  kid 
upon  the  canvas.  The  old  artist  was  a  "  thin  "  painter,  the  modern 
is  inclined  to  be  "  thick."  Certainly  we  feel  the  differences  when 
we  pass  from  the  section  of  the  gallery  devoted  to  the  old  masters 
to  the  one  set  aside  for  the  moderns.  Botticelli  and  Leonardo  da 
Vinci,  Michelangelo  and  Titian,  Raphael  and  Correggio,  to  men- 
tion only  a  precious  few,  present  one  appearance.  Turner  and 
Delacroix,  Courbet  and  Daumier,  Gezanne  and  Picasso,  to  men- 


490     ART  IN  CONTEMPORARY  CIVILIZATION 

tion  only  the  best,  have  produced  works  that  bear  but  faint  resem- 
blance to  these. 


STUDIO  TECHNIQUE 

There  is,  however,  a  common  technique  shared  by  these  two 
schools;  let  us  analyze  it  briefly  and  with  the  primary  aim  of 
pointing  out  that  it  was  not  wanting  in  the  Renaissance.  First 
of  all,  there  was  draftsmanship  and  painting  by  means  of  line. 
Now,  linear  fidelity  is  something  we  are  bound  to  mark  in  the 
exquisite  touch  of  Botticelli,  in  the  line  of  strength  in  Michel- 
angelo, of  dignity  in  Raphael,  of  living  power  in  Rubens.  Color 
became  manifest  with  the  Venetian  school  of  Titian,  Giorgione, 
and  Palma  Vecchio;  yet  we  would  not  refer  to  these  artists  as 
colorists.  We  find  some  significant  lighting,  although  of  an  arti- 
ficial sort,  in  Leonardo  and  Correggio,  while  there  was  adequate 
perspective  and  composition  when  the  high  Renaissance  was 
reached  after  the  year  1500.  Yet  these  obvious  forms  of  technique 
were  used  as  means  to  an  end,  to  make  a  good  picture,  a  good 
illustration,  as  it  were. 

What  we  find  when  we  come  to  the  modern  art  of  the  XlXth 
and  XXth  centuries  is  the  retreat  of  the  subject  and  the  rapid 
advance  of  technique.  Indeed,  we  find  more  than  that;  or,  to 
reverse  the  mode  of  expression,  what  we  lose  is  the  impression 
that  something  outside  the  canvas  is  being  represented.  What  we 
behold  is  not  a  picture  of  something,  as  Madonna,  prince,  his- 
torical scene,  but  a  painting.  The  subject  is  only  an  excuse  for  the 
display  of  the  painter's  art  and  often  it  is  difficult  to  determine. 
Thus  the  motto  of  the  modern  painter  is,  "  No  representation  of 
the  recognizable."  If  we  may  venture  the  analogy,  we  will  sug- 
gest that  post-classic  aesthetics  resembles  post-classic  physics  in 
that  the  conceptions  of  nature  entertained  by  artist  and  scientist 
are  not  all  obvious.  We  cannot  extend  our  common-sense  notions 
of  space,  time,  and  matter  and  thus  approximate  to  the  scientific 
truth  about  them  or  the  artistic  treatment  of  them.  Physics,  as 
we  observe  it  in  the  case  of  Relativity,  and  art,  as  we  see  it 
in  modernist  painting,  require  elucidation.  The  physicist,  the 
painter  must  explain  his  novel  methods  to  us  and  after  that  we 


MODERN  PAINTING  AND  PHYSICS         49! 

must  exert  ourselves  to  interpret  his  formulas,  his  figures.  This 
elucidation  on  his  part  and  sophistication  on  ours  is  something 
new;  it  was  not  required  by  Newton  or  Michelangelo.  Their 
science,  their  art  was  not  simple  nor  did  it  fail  to  take  us  out  of 
our  everyday  world;  but  to  this  we  returned  with  the  feeling  that 
the  things  of  science  and  of  art  looked  strangely  natural. 

MODERN  PAINTING  AND  PHYSICS 

Perhaps  we  can  do  no  better  than  pursue  still  further  this 
parallel  between  the  science  and  the  art  of  today.  Art  is  quite 
different  from  science  and  yet,  like  science,  it  may  attempt  to  press 
on  beyond  the  f amiliar  world  of  facts  into  some  unusual  order  of 
existence.  This  seems  to  be  the  case  with  both  physicist  and 
painter,  in  whose  ideas  we  find  something  unearthly.  Relativity 
proceeds  by  fusing  space  and  time  in  a  continuum  marked  by  the 
interweaving  of  space-points  and  time-intervals,  so  that  we  can- 
not answer  the  question  "  Where?  "  without  involving  the  ques- 
tion "  When?  "  In  the  art  of  painting,  this  fusion  of  space  and 
time  appears  when  music  assumes  an  objective  or  pictorial  form 
and  when  painting  becomes  so  dynamic  as  to  convey  the  effect  of 
movement.  Common  sense  may  object  to  all  this  and  hold  out  for 
separate  forms  of  space  and  time.  In  defense  of  the  new  view, 
however,  it  may  be  pointed  out  that,  in  observing  the  position 
and  formation  of  a  stratum  in  the  earth's  surface,  we  must  take 
cognizance  of  the  time  when  the  stratum  was  thus  placed.  Art 
is  no  less  insistent  upon  the  space-time  fusion,  the  blend- 
ing of  form  and  movement;  as  a  meteor  or  rocket  draws  a  bright 
path  behind  it  in  the  sky,  the  futurist  painter  seeks  to  impart 
the  same  sense  of  movement  in  the  object  he  places  upoa  his 
canvas. 

In  a  more  definite  manner,  it  may  be  stated  that  modern  art  is 
best  exemplified  in  Impressionism,  Cubism,  and  Futurism.  These 
three  tendencies  are  widely  divergent;  they  agree  in  departing 
from  the  classic  conception  of  a  painting  as  a  picture  of  something. 
Their  exponents  would  make  of  painting  a  creative  art  of  which 
the  picture  will  assume  the  form  of  a  thing-in-itself.  In  a  certain 
sense,  the  modern  painter  uses  colors  the  way  the  composer 


492     ART  IN  CONTEMPORARY  CIVILIZATION 

employs  tones;  that  Is,  the  painter  would  construct  something  of 
them.  The  Impressionist  seeks  to  present  the  appearance  of  an 
object  at  a  given  time  under  the  changing  conditions  of  light  and 
to  observe  that  nature,  far  from  using  black  and  white,  is  devoted 
to  color.  Hence  the  dark  shadow  cast  by  an  object  is  rendered 
purple.  The  Cubist  goes  to  the  other  extreme.  Instead  of  pre- 
senting an  object  in  some  ephemeral  situation,  he  prefers  to  rep- 
resent its  inherent  and  abiding  nature,  or  the  plan  on  which  it  is 
constructed.  His  painting  presents  a  solid  rather  than  a  super- 
ficial aspect  of  the  object.  When  this  block-method  of  painting 
is  employed,  it  gives  us  the  impression  that  the  work  of  the  painter 
has  just  begun  and  that  the  Cubist  should  proceed  with  it  and 
form  a  human  figure  capable  of  organic  existence.  Such  is  our 
impression  when  we  look  upon  A  Nude  Descending  a  Staircase. 
Yet  such  a  painting  does  not  fail  to  convey  at  least  an  architec- 
tural conception  of  the  human  form.  The  Futurist,  as  we  have 
indicated,  develops  a  kind  of  energetic  art  calculated  to  give  the 
impression  of  things  in  motion  or  objects  at  work.  In  a  certain 
sense,  Futurism  is  cinematographical.  It  suggests  movement  in 
the  way  that  a  picture  of  wreckage  gives  some  idea  of  the  railway 
collision  that  caused  it. 

THE  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  TENDENCY 

In  our  endeavor  to  penetrate  the  mask  of  modern  art,  we  are 
bound  to  observe  the  studied  crudeness  of  the  painter's  work,  if 
not  that  of  the  composer  or  the  poet.  In  the  forms  of  painting 
just  mentioned,  in  free  verse  and  jazz  music,  there  seems  to  be  a 
reversion  to  type,  as  though  the  artist  would  turn  evolution  back 
upon  itself  to  reinstate  the  primitive.  The  anthropological  factor 
in  modern  arts  is  unmistakable.  We  may  jest  about  this  and 
speak  of  the  "  futurist "  as  really  a  "  pastist,"  yet  we  must  come 
to  an  understanding  with  the  tendency.  In  one  significant  case, 
that  of  Gauguin  (1848-1903),  we  observe  a  painter  who  abandons 
civilization  and  goes  to  the  South  Sea  Islands,  where  he  lives  like 
a  native  and  paints  and  carves  in  primitive  style.  The  portraits 
of  Maori  Women  and  the  Maori  Venus  reveal  a  certain  amount 
of  technique  and  sophistication,  yet  the  spirit  of  these  canvases 


THE  ANTHROPOLOGICAL  TENDENCY 

is  aboriginal.  The  tendency  thus  revealed  by  Gauguin  might  be 
called  ancestral,  or  atavistic. 

When  we  are  confronted  by  this  tendency,  which  is  not  con- 
fined to  Gauguin  only,  certain  questions  arise  in  our  minds  and 
these  have  a  direct  bearing  upon  our  whole  problem  of  civiliza- 
tion and  culture.  Is  the  modern  artist  so  satiated  with  the  life 
of  the  present  that  he  seeks  primitive  existence  as  a  relief?  Or 
does  primitive  art,  which  has  not  been  worn  smooth  by  the  refine- 
ments of  the  classic  school,  reveal  a  technical  merit  which  the 
modern  may  well  imitate?  Or,  finally,  is  the  unity  of  the  race 
so  complete  and  the  continuity  of  its  development  so  marked 
that  present  and  past  have  much  in  common?  Undoubtedly 
an  individual  artist  like  Gauguin  may  have  recourse  to  the  primi- 
tive in  order  to  refresh  his  jaded  spirit,  but  the  anthropological 
spirit,  so  to  style  it,  must  have  some  deeper  source.  Everywhere 
there  is  a  perceptible  tendency  to  depart  from  the  norms  of 
culture  and  the  standards  of  civilization,  as  these  latter  are  ex- 
pressed in  statutes.  The  art  of  painting  reveals  this  in  the 
distortions  peculiar  to  Postimpressionism;  music  accompanies  it 
with  its  savage  sense  of  rhythm;  poetry  responds  with  its  crude- 
ness,  and  architecture  forms  a  background  of  primitive  power. 

The  effect  of  modern  painting  with  its  change  from  subject 
matter  to  technical  treatment  has  been  to  educate  the  layman  in 
the  meaning  of  the  painter's  art.  Perhaps  the  painter  goes  too 
far  in  his  departure  from  the  pictorial  when  he  aims  to  give  "  no 
representation  of  the  recognizable/'  but  this  extreme  tends  to 
draw  our  eyes  and  minds  away  from  the  trite  conception  of  paint- 
ing as  the  accurate  reproduction  of  the  obvious.  That  is  more 
the  work  of  the  photographer.  In  a  similar  manner,  the  result 
of  the  new  painting  has  been  ethical  in  the  sense  that  it  reveals 
a  disinterested  regard  for  its  objects,  whether  high  or  low  in  the 
social  scale,  impressive  or  commonplace  in  the  natural  order,  and 
good  or  bad  in  the  traditional  sense  of  those  terms.  Modern  art 
lets  its  light  fall  upon  just  and  unjust,  proud  and  humble  alike. 
In  figure  painting,  it  does  not  aim  at  a  "  beauty  show  "  but  at- 
tempts to  present  an  average'  degree  of  fairness  in  the  average 
person.  In  genre  painting,  it  has  the  effect  of  calling  our  atten- 
tion to  the  stern  realities  of  life  and  the  way  they  affect  the  race 


494     ART  IN  CONTEMPORARY  CIVILIZATION 

in  the  form  of  humble  surroundings,  the  bowed  form,  and 


wrinkled  face. 


Two  EFFECTS  OF  PAINTING 


In  a  more  definite  manner,  it  may  be  pointed  out  that  the  new 
painting  has  had  two  results.  It  has  enlarged  the  field  of  the 
subject  matter  by  revealing  the  effect  of  light  and  air  upon  ob- 
jects viewed  at  different  times  during  the  day.  This  has  been 
the  work  of  Impressionism.  It  has  analyzed  its  objects  in  such 
ways  as  to  penetrate  beneath  the  surface  into  their  very  struc- 
ture and  thus  show  how  they  exist  at  all  times,  under  all  condi- 
tions. The  Cubist  has  achieved  that.  Then,  in  the  case  of  dy- 
namic Futurism,  the  new  painting  has  impressed  us  with  the 
feeling  that  it  is  only  in  a  conventional  way  that  bodies  may  be 
thought  of  as  at  rest.  In  truth,  every  physical  object  is  an  exhi- 
bition of  energy  and  it  is  this  that  the  Futurist  has  striven  to  bring 
out.  By  means  of  art,  our  vision  of  the  world  today  is  different 
from  what  it  was  because  of  the  way  the  modern  artist  has 
represented  it  to  us. 

On  the  subjective  side,  the  painter  who  has  enlarged  our  world 
of  percepts  has  not  failed  to  liberalize  our  tastes.  We  are  now 
able  to  admire  what  at  first  seemed  only  a  caricature  of  objects. 
If  the  painter  in  the  instances  of  Impressionism,  Cubism,  and 
Futurism  has  indulged  in  exaggeration  bordering  on  distortion, 
his  excesses  have  had  the  effect  of  drawing  us  away,  as  if  by 
force,  from  aesthetic  conventionalism.  Our  layman's  attitude 
might  be  expressed  by  saying  that  our  new  appreciation  of  the 
art  is,  as  it  were,  a  mean  between  the  extremes  of  old  and  new, 
of  illustrative  pictures  and  independent  paintings.  Hence  we  are 
now  in  a  position  to  appreciate  such  a  work  as  Rain,  Steam  and 
Speed  by  Turner,  Apples  on  a  Table  by  Cezanne,  the  brilliance 
of  Signac,  the  solids  of  Picasso,  and  the  bold  brushwork  of  Van 
Gogh.  The  new  canvas  has  given  us  a  new  consciousness.  In 
all  art,  the  beholder  must  participate  by  contributing  appreciation 
to  the  artist's  effort.  At  the  present  time,  when  so  much  of 
art  is  left  unsaid  or  unpainted,  the  amount  that  the  beholder 
must  contribute  is  excessive.  The  painting  taxes  (his  brain  to 


THE  PROGRESS   OF  PAINTING 

discover  its  intention  or  calculated  effect.    Let  us  see,  then, 
where  we  stand  in  the  art  of  painting. 

Those  who  look  upon  art  just  as  they  look  upon  anything  else 
in  civilization  —  religion,  science,  industry  —  find  it  difficult  to 
account  for  the  new  movements,  or  the  art  that  has  abounded 
since  1870  when  Impressionism  came  to  the  front.  It  is  not 
difficult  to  realize  that  the  painter,  who  had  been  a  kind  of 
picture-maker,  was  disconcerted  by  the  new  art  of  photography, 
which  was  making  it  possible  to  procure  accurate  views  of  ob- 
jects and  scenes.  The  camera  had  become  the  rival  of  the  can- 
vas. Thus  there  came  a  breach  in  creative  art  and  the  world 
which  it  had  been  imitating.  But  in  addition  to  the  fact  of 
photography,  there  were  more  positive  factors  in  the  develop- 
ment of  Impressionism.  There  was,  for  example,  the  interest 
in  scientific  inventions.  In  speaking  of  the  difference  between 
two  types  of  painters,  Clive  Bell  says,  "Instead  of  painting 
women  and  flowers  as  that  back-number  Renoir  continued  to 
do,  up-to-date  M.  Besnard  would  represent  Electricity  or  The 
Wonders  of  Science  or  just  Death."  *  Now,  the  value  of  Bes- 
nard's  work  is  that  it  marks  the  end  of  Impressionism. 

THE  PROGRESS  OF  PAINTING  TO  THE  PRESENT 

If  we  desire  to  restate  the  art  of  painting  historically  and  thus 
indulge  in  dates,  we  may  observe  the  beginning  of  the  authentic 
movement  which  rose  as  early  as  1300  with  Cimabue  and  Giotto. 
Such  academic  art,  as  we  might  call  it,  persisted  until  the  death 
of  Rubens  in  1640  or  that  of  Poussin  in  1665.  Of  these  two,  it 
was  Rubens  who  expressed  more  of  the  modernist  tendency. 
The  influence,  or  wake,  of  the  academic  tradition  continued 
until  the  death  of  David  in  1825,  although  the  Romantic  School 
may  be  said  to  have  had  its  beginning  in  1822  when  Delacroix 
exhibited  his  first  painting,  The  Barque  of  Dante.  The  leading 
lines  of  contrast  between  the  termini  of  the  old  classical  and 
new  romantic  schools,  represented  most  effectively  by  David 
and  Delacroix,  may  be  stated  in  the  form  of  artistic  preferences. 
The  classical  stressed  draftsmanship,  the  line  as  outline  or  con- 
2  Nineteenth  Century  Painting*  p,  213. 


496     ART  IN  CONTEMPORARY  CIVILIZATION 

tour;  an  analytical  study  of  the  human  form  in  the  classical 
manner  inclining  toward  the  typical;  the  subject  matter  chiefly 
historical  or  otherwise  impressive  in  character.  The  romantic 
changed  abruptly  to  color  which  blurred  the  outline,  turned  to 
nature,  and  interpreted  art  upon  the  basis  of  full  emotion  rather 
than  thin  intellectuality.  The  transition  from  Romanticism  to 
Impressionism  was  effected  generally  by  the  landscape  painters 
of  the  XlXth  century,  primarily  Corot  and  Theodore  Rousseau, 
Turner  and  Constable. 

The  aspiration  of  the  older  artist  was  to  see  nature  steadily 
and  see  it  whole.  The  Impressionist  has  sought  to  view  nature 
swiftly  in  the  form  of  fleeting  instants  of  the  passing  light.  If 
we  may  venture  to  suggest  chronological  confines  of  the  move- 
ment, we  can  date  Impressionism  from  the  exhibition  of  Manet's 
works  in  Paris,  1867,  to  the  death  of  Cezanne  in  1907.  Within 
this  forty-year  period,  we  can  include  also  Monet,  Degas,  Renoir, 
and  Pissarro.  The  most  typical  development  of  Impressionism 
is  afforded  by  the  work  of  Monet,  who,  in  such  a  picture  as 
The  Haystac\s  provided  himself  with  a  score  of  canvases  upon 
which  he  painted  in  progression  the  successive  sunlight  effects 
of  his  object.  This,  however,  yielded  more  of  a  Luminism  in 
particular  than  a  general  Impressionism.  The  lightness  of 
impressionistic  principles  of  painting  was  such  as  to  discon- 
tent a  great  artist  like  Cezanne,  hence  we  observe  the  emer- 
gence of  a  Postimpression  School  comprised  of  what  we  might 
call  little  Cezannes.  In  the  group,  however,  were  such  inde- 
pendent artists  as  Van  Gogh  and  Gauguin. 

Cezanne  in  particular  requires  notice;  his  superior  art  has  had 
the  effect  of  making  the  modern  movement  at  least  semiofficial 
or  half  orthodox.  "The  germinal  ideas  of  Cezanne  may  be 
formulated  as  follows,"  says  Mather,  "creative  distortion:  this 
means  the  departure  from  actual  appearance  that  the  artist 
makes  either  to  express  his  emotion  or  to  emphasize  as  against 
what  the  eye  sees  in  the  object  what  the  mind  knows  to  be 
there.  We  may  call  these  distortions  Expressive  and  Factual." 8 
Such  "  expressive  distortion  "  may  be  understood  by  comparing 
the  painter's  manner  to  the  author's  style,  in  the  sense  that 

3  Modern  Painting,  p.  344. 


"  A  WHEELWRIGHT'S  YARD  ON  THE  BANKS  OF  THE  SEINE."    COROT 


"  THE  FOREST  OF  FQNTAINEBLEAU."    CEZANNE 
(facing  page  496) 


498     ART  IN  CONTEMPORARY  CIVILIZATION 

Nor  is  our  spirit  today  that  of  those  great  composers  Bach  and 
Handel,  or  of  their  followers  in  the  Classical  School  of  the 
XVIIIth  century,  Haydn,  Gluck,  and  Mozart.  But  the  Roman- 
tic School  of  the  XlXth  century,  the  school  of  Schumann,  Chopin, 
Berlioz,  Liszt,  and  Wagner,  broke  down  many  of  the  classical 
restrictions  and  opened  the  way  to  a  freer  use  of  harmony  and 
a  development  of  a  new  type  of  melody.  Composers  of  today 
may,  it  is  true,  go  back  to  Bach  in  their  adoption  of  his  contra- 
puntal writing,  that  is,  the  combination  of  several  musical  melo- 
dies and  harmonies  moving  along  at  the  same  time;  but  the 
modern  counterpoint  is  extremely  dissonant,  so  much  so  that  it  is 
difficult  to  discover  the  different  melodies  running  through  the 
work. 

It  is  to  the  romantic  composers  that  we  are  particularly  in- 
debted In  certain  technical  ways  musicians  of  today  follow  that 
outstanding  operatic  composer  Wagner  (1813-1883).  Wagner's 
use  of  the  chromatic  scale,  which  progresses  by  half  steps  instead 
of  by  the  more  usual  diatonic  combination  of  whole  and  half 
steps,  is  a  forerunner  of  the  similar  though  more  advanced  type 
used  by  Debussy  (1862-1918)  and  the  impressionistic  composers. 
However,  there  is  one  important  distinction  to  be  noted.  In 
spite  of  his  use  of  the  chromatic  scale,  in  Wagner's  works  one  is 
ordinarily  conscious  of  the  original  key  in  which  the  composition 
was  written,  whereas  Cesar  Franck  (1822-1890),  though  he  pro- 
gressed from  one  key  to  another  by  the  chromatic  scale  in  much 
the  same  way  as  did  Wagner,  occasionally  made  the  central  key 
of  his  work  somewhat  more  obscure.  Debussy,  in  our  own  cen- 
tury, carrying  Impressionism  still  further  in  his  search  after  un- 
usual color  effects  in  his  music,  finally  evolved  harmonic  patterns 
which  are  in  no  key.  Just  as  the  French  painters  of  the  school  of 
Impressionism,  Manet,  Monet,  Renoir,  and  others,  employed 
color,  so  does  Debussy  treat  each  musical  chord  as  a  bit  of  color, 
ignoring  the  structure  of  his  composition.  This  fragmentary 
music  is  similar  to  the  poetry  of  the  Impressionistic  School. 
Maeterlinck  in  his  "  PdUas  et  Mttisande "  allowed  one  or  two 
colorful  words  to  express  an  entire  thought.  When  Debussy 
wrote  the  musical  setting  for  the  poem,  he  too  reflected  the 
element  of  sound  for  its  own  sake.  The  older  idea  of  a  melody 


FRENCH  AND  GERMAN  COMPOSERS         499 

with  harmonic  accompaniment  is  largely  abandoned  by  the 
impressionistic  writers.  If  a  certain  chord  expresses,  let  us  say, 
light  or  water  or  mist,  it  is  repeated  in  sequence  in  an  endless 
variety  of  pianistic  figures  to  intensify  the  initial  impression. 
In  this  way  the  usual  harmonic  progressions  sanctified  by  tradi- 
tion are  entirely  absent  and  we  get  what  one  critic  has  called 
"merely  movement,  sound,  and  color."  Such  impressionistic 
music  is  naturally  largely  sensuous,  and  the  intellectual  element 
plays  a  minor  part. 

FRENCH  AND  GERMAN  COMPOSERS 

In  spite  of  the  utter  lack  of  structure  in  the  compositions  of  cer- 
tain modern  composers  today,  there  are  other  composers  who 
fail  to  consider  the  emotional  element  of  music  at  all,  and  ap- 
proach composition  with  an  intellectual  attitude  resembling  that 
of  the  Classical  School.  To  be  sure,  their  dissonant  chords  and 
progressions  from  one  key  to  another  would  never  be  mistaken 
for  classic,  but  in  their  utter  subduing  of  feeling  and  their  un- 
swerving regard  for  the  structure  and  architecture  of  their  com- 
positions they  are  classic.  Such  a  one  was  Reger  (1873-1916),  in 
Germany,  who  wrote  involved  counterpoint  of  an  extremely  dis- 
sonant order.  The  intricate  weaving  of  the  tone  lines  in  counter- 
point involves  an  intellectual  capacity  far  more  than  any  other 
type  of  composition.  Another  writer  of  this  intellectual  music 
is  Schonberg,  who  was  at  first  a  Romanticist  in  the  Wagnerian 
manner.  He  writes  in  a  scale  made  up  of  twelve  tones  instead 
of  the  more  usual  eight  tones,  and  employs  the  devices  of  coun- 
terpoint in  a  most  intricate  manner.  His  music  lacks  emotional 
warmth,  but  has  great  architectural  value.  Hindemith,  another 
German  composer,  writes  in  the  most  advanced  manner  as  far 
as  dissonance  is  concerned.  His  works  are  sometimes  spirited 
and  usually  hard  in  tone.  He  employs  many  of  the  classic  forms 
and  hence  is  particularly  concerned  with  design  rather  than  with 
color  effect.  Along  with  these  Germans,  the  French  composers 
still  preserve  their  traditional  elegance,  precision,  and  clarity  of 
design,  which  has  been  part  of  their  national  heritage.  Ravel, 
not  one  of  the  most  ultra  composers,  still  writes  music  of  great 


500     ART  IN  CONTEMPORARY  CIVILIZATION 

technical  brilliance  and,  though  not  an  extremist,  is  a  modern  in 

tone. 

The  treatment  of  the  old  contrapuntal  principles  in  this  dis- 
sonant way  has  resulted  in  a  type  of  music  known  as  polytonal. 
In  such  music  several  keys  are  heard  simultaneously,  as  the  dif- 
ferent voices  are  written  in  different  keys.  However,  the  tech- 
nique of  counterpoint  has  merely  been  expanded  to  include  lines 
of  chords  and  keys  instead  of  single  melodies.  Richard  Strauss 
has  employed  polytonal  progressions  in  his  orchestral  works. 
The  different  tonal  streams  each  running  its  own  way  and  yet 
combining  in  a  unified  effect  are  most  arresting  when  employed  to 
express  conflict.  Honegger  has  used  the  polytonal  apparatus 
with  wonderful  effect  in  his  Le  Roi  David,  notably  when  he  pic- 
tures the  various  camps  of  the  armies  and  different  groups  march- 
ing. Both  architecture  and  dissonance  are  combined  in  such 
music,  resulting  in  an  effect  which  is  pleasing  to  some  and 
entirely  cacophonous  to  others. 

NEW  CHORDS 

In  constructing  this  dissonant  music,  it  is  natural  that  new 
chords  should  be  invented  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  sound 
and  color  effects.  Even  in  the  Romantic  School  one  finds  chords 
which  include  non-harmonic  tones;  that  is,  tones  not  found  on 
the  chord-structure  built  up  from  intervals  of  thirds  and  fourths, 
the  ordinary  chords  which  make  up  the  music  of  hymns.  Such 
familiar  chords  have  lost  their  appeal,  and  startling  combinations 
of  intervals  have  been  constructed,  entirely  apart  from  ordinary 
rule.  Yet  many  people  of  no  musical  training  like  such  pro- 
gressions. 

The  piano,  used  by  Chopin  (1810-1849)  and  Debussy,  both 
of  whom  appreciated  its  genius,  has  undergone  a  change  in  the 
manner  of  technical  manipulation.  Now  it  is  played  with  not 
only  the  fingers,  but  the  palm  of  the  hand,  the  fist,  the  entire 
forearm,  and  the  elbow.  It  is  struck  with  hammers,  the  strings 
are  plucked,  etc.  To  many  this  seems  a  sacrilege,  but  new 
sonority  has  developed.  These  percussive  effects  are  sometimes 
legitimate.  In  general  the  orchestra  could  do  much  better,  how- 


NEW  CHORDS  501 

ever.  There  is  a  limit  to  the  capacity  of  the  piano  and  it  can 
scarcely  be  forced  beyond  its  limitations.  The  inclusion  of  many 
tones  lying  adjacent  to  each  other  is  technically  called  the  use 
of  tone  clusters.  These  often  include  all  the  tones  of  the  scale, 
heard  at  the  same  time,  and  the  tones  of  the  black  keys  which 
form  the  pentatonic  scale.  Unusually  brilliant  passages  are  found 
with  tone  clusters  alternating  with  scale  runs  and  with  the  over- 
worked glissando,  or  glide.  Some  of  the  effects  are  cheap  and 
have  little  to  do  with  the  real  development  of  musical  thought. 
There  is  a  place  for  them,  however. 

In  the  orchestra  there  is  more  attention  paid  to  the  individual 
instruments  than  ever  before.  Again  we  find  evidence  of  innova- 
tion in  the  Romantic  School.  Berlioz  (1803-1869),  who  has  been 
called  the  greatest  of  French  musicians,  experimented  very  defi- 
nitely in  the  groupings  of  the  orchestra,  dividing  the  strings  into 
eight  or  twelve  parts  and  developing  special  effects  in  the  per- 
cussions. It  is  for  such  innovations  as  these  that  he  is  regarded 
as  the  real  founder  of  modern  French  music.  Modern  composers 
have  tried  to  achieve  effects  similar  to  those  produced  by  Berlioz, 
but  more  economically.  The  instrumental  body  of  the  orchestra 
has  been  reduced  by  certain  German  composers,  and  the  solo  in- 
struments are  heard  to  greater  advantage.  There  is  almost  a  fad 
for  the  smaller  orchestra.  The  piano  is  introduced  as  a  full-time 
member  of  the  group,  instead  of  performing  only  as  a  solo  in- 
strument. Rimsky-Korsakoff  (1844-1908),  Richard  Strauss,  Stra- 
vinsky, and  many  others  have  written  passages  that  tax  the  in- 
dividual instruments  to  their  full  capacity.  The  infinite  range 
of  instrumental  capacity  is  amazing.  The  amount  of  sonority 
has  increased  to  such  an  extent  that  one  is  often  inclined  to  call 
it  noise.  It  is  Respighi  who  uses  the  orchestral  apparatus  to 
the  limit. 

It  is  difficult  to  classify  moderns  in  the  field  of  music  because 
each  composer  is  a  law  unto  himself.  However,  there  are  certain 
composers  who  should  be  mentioned,  since  they  represent  spe- 
cific tendencies.  Scriabin  (1871-1915)  enlarged  the  harmonic  vo- 
cabulary by  writing  arbitrary  scales  which  give  a  peculiar  and 
individual  quality  to  his  work,  and  also  used  involved  rhythms. 
Stravinsky  is  also  rhythmic  to  a  degree  which  nearly  obscures 


502     ART  IN  CONTEMPORARY  CIVILIZATION 

other  elements  o£  his  art.  His  rhythms  are  sometimes  primitive 
in  effect,  often  o£  a  complexity  which  is  amazing,  and  again 
very  sophisticated.  Stravinsky  has  passed  through  several  har- 
monic phases,  from  a  neo-Russian  folk  strain  to  a  pale  and  non- 
individual,  nee-classic  style.  Many  consider  Sibelius  the  greatest 
living  composer.  He  is  comparatively  uninfluenced  by  the  trends 
of  other  countries.  He  reflects  the  quality  of  his  own  native 
Finland.  There  is  a  strength  and  rugged  quality  quite  indi- 
vidual to  him,  and  his  harmonic  scheme  is  different  from  that 
of  any  other  composer.  He  seems  less  a  member  of  a  school 
than  a  lone  personality  of  peculiar  force.  His  music  is  folkiikc, 
yet  dissonant,  and  abounds  in  original  effects. 

'   AMERICAN  COMPOSERS 

Most  of  the  younger  American  composers  write  in  the  mod- 
ern idiom,  speaking  technically.  Aesthetically  they  are  not  all 
of  one  mind.  In  general  they  use  all  the  resources  of  dissonant 
counterpoint,  employ  the  most  advanced  type  of  chord  struc- 
tures, and  treat  the  orchestra  in  the  newer  manner.  There  are 
many  and  varied  influences  which  cause  the  works  of  different 
composers  to  possess  distinct  styles.  Howard  Hanson  is  known 
far  the  rugged  character  of  his  harmonic  style.  Aaron  Copland 
has  made  jazz  a  part  of  his  idiom.  John  Alden  Carpenter, 
although  older  than  some  of  these  newer  composers,  has  mir- 
rored American  life  in  its  urban  aspects  in  Skyscrapers,  while 
Arthur  Shephard  has  written  music  with  a  touch  of  the  west- 
ern prairies  running  through  it.  Henry  Cowell  experiments 
with  new  instruments  and  new  ways  of  securing  novel  tonal 
effects  on  the  piano.  He  has  delved  into  the  physics  of  music 
more  than  has  the  average  musician.  Roy  Harris  writes  with 
vigor  and  a  certain  freedom  from  convention.  Although  these 
composers  are  not  always  self-avowed  nationalists,  there  is  a 
strong  tendency  to  seek  an  expression  truly  American.  Charles 
Ives,  an  older  composer  than  those  mentioned,  is  nevertheless 
very  modern  in  spirit  He  has,  in  the  Concord  Sonata  (1920), 
given  a  tonal  recreation  of  the  great  personalities  of  Concord: 
Emerson,  the  Alcotts,  Hawthorne,  and  Thoreau.  The  wild 


UP-TO-DATE  POETRY  503 

young  man  of  a  few  years  back,  Leo  Ornstein,  has  reverted  to 
a  more  conservative  idiom  in  the  past  few  years.  His  adven- 
tures among  the  tone  clusters  were  startling  when  they  first 
resounded  on  an  astounded  public's  ears. 

The  influence  of  the  Negro  spiritual  and  Negro  music  in 
general  has  been  felt.  John  Powell  has  written  a  Negro  Rhap- 
sody, and  Harold  Morris  a  concerto  (piano)  based  on  Negro 
themes.  The  latter  was  one  of  the  most  praised  works  of  recent 
seasons.  The  modern  Americans  talk  a  great  deal  about  the 
"  long  melodic  line,"  the  necessity  of  abandoning  the  strict 
chord  sequence,  and  the  effect  of  "  polyrhythms."  In  many 
cases  there  is  a  radical  tendency,  with  the  negation  of  all  that 
has  gone  before.  Yet  Chasins,  one  of  the  talented  younger  men, 
recendy  argued  in  favor  of  the  evolutionary  principle  rather 
than  the  revolutionary.  One  is  impressed  by  the  intellectual 
quality  of  the  aesthetic  creed  of  the  moderns;  there  is  less  talk 
about  feeling.  In  fact,  it  seems  to  be  considered  in  bad  taste  in 
many  quarters  to  exhibit  any  emotion.  Whether  this  can  con- 
tinue is  an  open  question.  Music  has  always  been  an  expression 
of  the  emotions,  and  one  can  scarcely  leave  that  phase  out  of  the 
composition  process.  Recently  people  have  asked  how  far  the 
dissonant  element  in  modern  music  can  go  without  degenerating 
into  mere  noise.  Radical  composers  have  replied  that  noise  is  a 
legitimate  part  of  music.  They  approve  of  imitating  our  peculiar 
and  often  distracting  noises.  This  opens  the  question  of  whether 
wholesale  imitation  of  everyday  affairs,  even  in  the  realm  of 
sound,  is  a  good  aesthetic  position.  The  selection  of  sounds  to 
make  an  artistic  pattern  is  probably  a  far  better  way  of  creating 
lasting  music.  Just  as  the  mind  refuses  to  accept  all  the  over- 
tones in  any  fundamental  tone,  this  being  a  biological  protection, 
so  will  it  refuse  to  accept  as  beautiful  all  sounds,  regardless  of 
their  source  or  combination. 

UP-TO-DATE  POETRY 

The  art  of  poetry  is  quite  in  litue,  and  in  a  rather  jagged  line, 
with  its  sister  arts  of  painting  and  music,  All  three  give  tfee 
impression  of  being  intoxicated.  Of  course,  k  is  not  fair  to 


5o4    ART  IN  CONTEMPORARY  CIVILIZATION 

measure  a  modern  canvas,  a  flash  of  free  verse,  or  a  bit  of  synco- 
pation with  the  frescoes  of  Michelangelo,  the  blank  verse  of 
Milton,  or  the  symphonies  of  Beethoven.  There  is  no  question 
about  the  authenticity  of  such  classics,  and  in  comparison  with 
them  these  modern  productions  are  bound  to  fall  short.  But  do 
they  need  to  plunge  down?  We  would  be  sympathetic  toward 
the  aesthetic  strivings  of  the  nouveau,  but  we  cannot  help  wish- 
ing he  would  be  more  respectful  in  his  attitude  toward  the  past, 
if  not  more  amenable  to  its  instruction.  Is  modern  verse  to  be 
called  poetry  in  any  acceptable  sense  of  that  term?  Perhaps,  but 
those  who  have  felt  the  undulations  of  great  poetic  seas — The 
Iliad,  faery  Queen,  Divine  Comedy,  and  Faust  —  must  fail  to 
feel  any  tidal  drift  in  the  modern  poem,  which  seems  to  do  no 
more  than  trickle,  splash,  and  spatter.  Under  what  circum- 
stances did  this  American  art  arise? 


THE  POETIC  RENAISSANCE  OF  1912 

Twenty  years  ago,  Harriet  Monroe,  herself  a  poet,  began  the 
publication  of  Poetry,  a  Magazine  of  Verse.  It  was  a  sign  of 
the  times.  Poets  were  springing  up  everywhere  and  so  great 
was  the  output  of  verse  that,  six  years  later,  John  Masefield  was 
led  to  remark  that  America  seemed  to  be  making  ready  for  a 
great  poetic  revival  comparable  to  the  eras  preceding  Chaucer 
and  Shakespeare.5  The  historical  analogy  breaks  down  at  the 
point  where  the  poetic  genius  is  supposed  to  appear,  since  no 
semblance  of  a  colossal  figure  is  discernible,  but  it  is  not  to  be 
denied  that  the  new  republic  of  verse  includes  many  talented 
minds  which  have  given  adequate  expression  to  poetic  art  as 
they  understand  it.  These  pioneers  of  poetry  resemble  their 
forefathers  in  that  they  also  regard  America  as  the  land  of  oppor- 
tunity, opportunity  for  the  ideal  as  well  as  the  real.  The  Colum- 
bus of  the  American  adventure  seems  to  have  been  Walt  Whit- 
man, whose  "  barbaric  yawp,"  as  he  himself  called  it,  was  to 
awaken  the  land  to  its  poetic  task.  This  impromptu  bard  may 
not  have  found  "  tongues  in  trees,  books  in  the  running  brooks, 
sermons  in  stones,  and  good  in  everything,"  but  he  saw  miracles 

6  Marguerite  Wilkinson,  New  Voices,  An  Introduction  to  Contemporary  Poets. 


THE  POETIC  RENAISSANCE  OF  1912         505 

in  leaves  of  grass,  an  ant  and  grain  of  sand,  the  tree-toad,  cow 
and  mouse.6  Moreover,  it  was  not  only  his  own  voice  that  caught 
his  ear,  for  he  heard  America  singing  in  the  voice  of  the  me- 
chanic, carpenter,  mason,  shoemaker,  seamstress,  and  the  like, 
"  each  singing  what  belongs  to  him  or  her  and  to  none  else." 7 
Then  there  was  Emily  Dickinson,  also,  another  pioneer  of 
the  new  verse,  and  what  a  strange  companion  for  the  rugged 
Whitman! 

The  Who's  Who  in  American  poetry  would  form  quite  a  sub- 
stantial volume,  since  the  list  of  names  is  long  and  the  range  of 
poems  wide;  hence  it  becomes  difficult  to  select  the  names  that 
will  prove  permanent  in  literature  or  to  cite  the  poems  that  will 
endure  the  test  of  time  and  prove  to  be  of  abiding  merit.  We 
might  reach  back  and  restore  the  names  of  Riley  and  Field,  make 
mention  of  Edwin  Markham  and  Bliss  Carman,  and  pay  some 
attention  to  Edwin  Arlington  Robinson  and  Edgar  Lee  Masters. 
But  the  style  of  verse  we  are  seeking  as  typical  of  the  nouveau 
poetry  is  findable  chiefly  in  Carl  Sandburg  and  Vachel  Lindsay. 
The  usual  reader  of  poetry  looks  to  the  poem  to  take  him  out 
of  the  commonplace  world  by  invitations  to  its  own  realm  of 
remote  delights,  hence  he  is  not  inclined  toward  the  poetry  of 
the  steel  mill,  the  slaughter  house,  and  the  crowded  city.  But  it 
was  in  such  a  milieu  that  Sandburg  produced  his  Chicago  Poems. 
Paris,  Venice,  Vienna  seem  promising  places  for  poetry,  but  can 
any  verse  come  out  of  a  bustling  American  city?  Yet  Sandburg 
produced  poetry  that  is  one  hundred  per  cent  American. 

The  democratic  if  not  banal  element  appears  no  less  obtru- 
sively in  Vachel  Lindsay's  three  R's,  "  Rhyme,  Religion  and  Rag- 
time." 8  The  Congo  is  an  Africo-American  poem  inspired  by 
the  poet-pedestrian's  long  tramps  through  certain  of  the  south- 
ern states.  In  it  we  hear  the  tones  of  the  primitive  medicine 
man  and  the  modern  evangelist,  the  deep  bass  and  the  shrill 
falsetto  of  colored  singers  in  their  spirituals,  and  both  the  pom- 
posity and  fear  of  the  primitive  mind  represented  by  the  Ameri- 
can Negro.  The  evangelistic  tone  which  hums  through  much 

6  Song  of  Myself. 

7  I  Hear  America  Singing, 

8  Louis  Untermeyer,  Modern  American  and  British  Poetry,  p.  159. 


506     ART  IN  CONTEMPORARY  CIVILIZATION 

of  Lindsay's  verse  comes  forth  most  distinctly  in  his  General 
Booth  Enters  into  Heaven,  which  adopts  the  rhythm  and  bor- 
rows the  lilt  and  language  of  a  well-known  Salvation  Army 
street  hymn. 

THE  RANGE  OF  AMERICAN  VERSE 

Although  the  artistically  judicious  may  grieve  over  the  quality 
of  verse  being  put  forth  and  the  ears  of  the  groundlings  not  be 
tickled  by  its  music,  we  dare  not  deny  that  poetry  puts  forth  its 
voice  and  gains  at  least  some  hearing.  More  people  than  ever 
before  are  writing  verse  and  if  the  art  is  not  so  popular  as  it  was 
in  Elizabethan  times  when  almost  every  man  was  a  verse-maker, 
rhythm  has  become  contagious  and  with  a  certain  set  rivals  the 
fad  of  dancing.  The  symptoms  of  this  noble  mania  cannot  be 
mistaken;  they  appear  in  the  form  of  a  light  rash  upon  the  pages 
of  newspaper,  magazine,  and  bound  volume,  however  slender 
and  wide  with  extent  of  white  space  these  last  may  be. 

The  taste  of  the  newspaper  reader  is  such  that  the  "  daily 
poem"  is  printed  with  the  news,  advertisements,  and  comic 
strips.  A  page  or  so  of  the  "  best  verse  "  is  printed  in  some  of 
the  weekly  magazines  and  a  sonnet  for  which  the  editor  has 
paid  a  modest  sum  appears  here  and  there  in  the  monthly  maga- 
zine. The  book  reviews  in  the  Sunday  papers  include  criticisms 
of  the  latest  poetic  offerings.  In  a  more  constructive  manner, 
such  a  periodical  as  Poetry,  a  Magazine  of  Verse,  devotes  space 
to  poems  that  otherwise  might  not  find  their  way  into  print. 
Speaking  of  such  magazines,  Carl  and  Mark  Van  Doren's 
American  and  British  Literature  since  1890  says,  "  They .  have 
given  a  hearing  to  poets  who  might  otherwise  have  been  neglected, 
they  have  stimulated  critical  discussion  of  poetry,  they  have 
helped  to  fix  public  attention  upon  the  art."9  If  the  young 
poet  is  not  privileged  to  assemble  his  verses  in  a  bound  volume, 
some  of  his  poems  may  appear  in  company  with  those  of  his 
fellow  bards  in  an  annual  anthology  like  The  Best  Poems  of 
ig — ,  a  rather  authentic  publication  which  began  to  appear  in 
1923. 

9  Op.  cit.,  p.  13. 


TENDER  BARDS 


TENDER  BARDS 


507 


Going  farther  back  into  the  mind  of  the  modern  Muse,  we 
find  that  schools  and  colleges  are  encouraging  the  youthful  mind 
to  express  itself  in  the  form  of  the  new  verse,  which  is  not  quite 
so  severe  as  the  classic  poem.  Indeed,  curricula  in  some  second- 
ary schools  are  now  devoting  less  time  to  the  classics  for  the  sake 
of  presenting  contemporary  literature  in  the  form  of  drama  and 
poem,  essay  and  novel,  or  the  type  of  reading  matter  the  student 
is  most  likely  to  continue  reading  after  graduation.  On  the 
constructive  side,  school  poetry,  as  we  might  call  it,  has  been 
furthered  by  the  publication  of  such  a  magazine  as  The  Scho- 
lastic, a  magazine  designed  primarily  for  the  writings  of  scholars 
in  the  secondary  schools.  Then  there  is  the  student  anthology 
Saplings,  made  up  entirely  of  the  literary  work  of  high-school 
students.  This  "  Children's  Crusade  "  has  advanced  so  far  that 
an  ancient  publishing  house  in  New  York  brought  out  in  1927 
a  work  entitled  Singing  Youth,  an  anthology  of  poems  by 
children,  edited  by  Mabel  Mountsier.  Four  years  earlier, 
Louis  Untermeyer,  himself  a  poet,  had  edited  an  anthology 
called  This  Singing  World,  a  book  designed  to  appeal  primarily 
to  children. 

Modern  poetry,  as  far  as  one  can  discern  its  method,  seems  to 
be  more  interested  in  expressing  immediate  actualities  than  in 
groping  after  clouds  of  idealities.  It  seems  to  take  life  "  as  is," 
or  in  the  caveat  emftor  sense,  and  makes  no  distinction  between 
poetic  and  non-poetic  subjects.  The  poems  are  free  in  expression 
but  not  without  some  sort  of  pattern  which  is  designed  to  fit  the 
mood.  As  to  technique,  it  may  be  observed  that  the  all-important 
factor  of  rhythm  is  founded  on  cadence  rather  than  on  metrical 
feet,  for  the  poem  is  supposed  to  read  better  than  it  scans.  The 
diction,  too,  is  quite  informal,  being  the  speech  of  everyday  life 
rather  than  the  traditional  language  of  the  Muse  whose  use  of 
"thee"  and  "ye,"  "yclept"  and  "ere"  has  been  supplanted 
by  the  colloquial  Imagery  is  present,  but  it  is  not  so  much 
the  analogy  between  the  poet's  impression  and  some  object  in 
nature,  as  cloud  or  stream  or  hill;  rather  is  it  the  expression  of 
his  mood. 


508     ART  IN  CONTEMPORARY  CIVILIZATION 

THE  WOMEN  POETS 

Those  who  read  modern  American  poems  in  moods  as  sympa- 
thetic as  they  can  command  are  bound  to  observe  that  the  new 
American  art  has  enlisted  the  endeavors  of  women.  Poetry  had 
known  its  Sappho  and  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning,  but  was  not 
disposed  to  admit  that  the  art  which  Homer,  Dante,  Shakespeare, 
Milton,  Goethe,  and  others  not  quite  so  superior  had  glorified 
would  ever  "go  feminine."  This  it  seems  to  be  doing  at  the 
present  time  to  such  an  extent  that  the  woman  poet  is  not  at  all 
exceptional.  Apparently  feminism  has  extended  beyond  the 
ballot  box  and  has  adopted  modes  other  than  those  of  costume 
and  coiffure.  Poetry  is  one  of  these  feminine  fashions.  It  shows 
itself  in  connection  with  the  rise  of  the  new  lyricism  and  is  some- 
what emphatic  in  its  stress  upon  love.  In  The  Answering  Voice 
(1917),  for  example,  Sara  Teasdale  has  assembled  one  hundred 
love  lyrics  by  women,  and  apparently  is  not  going  to  meet  much 
competition  in  the  form  of  as  many  sentimental  sonnets  by  men. 

One  cannot  forget  the  success  which  Petrarch  and  Shakespeare 
enjoyed  in  their  attempts  to  express  amorous  adoration  in  sonnet 
form  and  may  wonder  why  the  American  Renaissance  has  not 
witnessed  anything  of  the  kind  among  its  vigorous  bards.  Can  it 
be  that  the  feminist  movement,  which  placed  women  in  many  of 
the  positions  formerly  occupied  by  men,  has  ousted  these  women 
from  the  tender  places  they  once  enjoyed  in  masculine  hearts? 
And  is  it  that  woman  writes,  and  that  somewhat  dispassionately, 
about  her  love  for  man  because  man  refuses  to  write  about  his 
love  for  woman  ?  "  One  could  chart  the  progress  of  unsenti- 
mental love-poems  from  the  intensities  of  Emily  Dickinson  and 
the  simplicities  of  Lizette  Woodworth  Reese  to  the  varied  reso- 
nances of  Edna  St.  Vincent  Millay,  Sara  Teasdale,  Elinor  Wylie, 
Elizabeth  J.  Coatsworth,  Leonie  Adams,  Virginia  Moore,  and  a 
score  of  others,"  says  Louis  Untermeyer.10  "  Such  a  course  would 
be  endless  and  unprofitable."  If  endless,  why  "unprofitable?  " 
the  reader  might  ask.  For  between  the  ranges  of  Edna  St.  Vin- 
cent Millay's  The  Fatal  Interview  and  The  Janitor's  Boy  by 
Nathalia  Crane,  there  must  be  room  for  much  psychological  and 

10  Modern  American  and  British  Poetry,  p.  47. 


THE  WOMEN  POETS  509 

sociological  matter  well  worth  analyzing  in  the  spirit  of  the 
times. 

The  masculine  bards  appear  to  be  leaving  the  feminine  heart 
to  its  own  devices,  for  the  "  nymphs  "  that  intrigue  their  way 
into  their  poems  are  more  likely  to  be  the  Brooklyn  Bridge, 
Subway  Builders,  Steel,  Science,  New  York,  Abraham  Lincoln, 
Trees,  A  Crowded  Trolley  Car,  Lincoln  again,  Turbines,  and  that 
most  remarkable  Burial  of  a  Dead  Cat.  It  is  the  city  rather  than 
the  milieu  of  meadow,  grove,  and  dale  that  seems  to  make  appeal 
to  the  sophisticated  poet.11  Practically  all  of  these  determined 
bards  take  their  art  most  seriously,  although  here  and  there,  as 
in  the  case  of  Ogden  Nash  and  Wilfred  Funk,  there  seems  to 
be  the  feeling  that  it  is  all  very  good  fun.  In  the  instance  of 
James  J.  Montague,  who  produces  a  poem  for  the  newspapers 
every  week  day,  a  very  clever  bit  of  verse  is  turned  out  as  though 
it  were  all  in  the  day's  work.  If  only  these  other  versifiers  would 
take  themselves  less  seriously  we  could  have  more  sympathy  for 
their  efforts.  However,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  American  poetry 
of  the  last  twenty  years  is  a  fairly  authentic  expression  of  Ameri- 
can life  during  that  period,  and  if  the  poet  does  not  write  worthy 
verses  it  is  because  we  do  not  live  worthy  lives. 

11  Edna  Lou  Walton,  The  City  Day,  pp.  3-42. 


CHAPTER  XX 
THE  VALUES  OF  CIVILIZATION 


MAN  A  VALUING  ANIMAL 

MAN,"  SAID  NIETZSCHE,  "  is  THE  VALUING  ANIMAL  AS  SUCH." 
Now,  this  is  quite  different  from  calling  man  a  "  good 
animal"  or  a  "happy  animal";  goodness  may  develop 
in  man  and  happiness  occur  in  his  life,  but  in  the  meantime  man 
must  express  his  nature  and  carry  on  in  human  enterprise.    He 
does  this,  as  we  realize  today,  by  a  constant  process  of  valuing 
whereby  he  sets  the  seal  of  approval  upon  men,  enterprises,  ideas, 
and  the  like.     Man  may  never  discover  the  summum  bonum 
in  his  life  or  develop  Utopia  in  his  civilization,  but  he  appreciates 
the  values  of  things  and  tries  to  decide  upon  the  worth  of  life. 
Civilization  and  culture  are  sets  of  human  values  —  outer  values 
that  have  taken  the  form  of  cities  and  institutions;  inner  ones 
appearing  in  the  arts  and  sciences.    The  result  of  what  man  has 
done  is  findable  in  just  these  works  of  the  Valuing  animal  as  such. 
All  of  us  use  the  standard  of  value  without  knowing  it.    When 
we  look  at  anything  sharply,  we  are  inclined  to  ask,  "  What  is 
the  good  of  it?  "    If  we  sum  up  the  results  of  feudalism  or  the 
French  Revolution  or  the  World  War,  we  may  inquire,  "  What 
good  did  it  do?  "    Likewise,  when  we  observe  the  intensive 
mechanization  of  labor  and  watch  the  robots  at  work,  we  are 
tempted  to  put  the  question,  "  What  will  it  amount  to  ?  "    We 
vary  the  expression  but  maintain  the  same  attitude  of  the  valuing 
animal  when  we  keep  asking,  "What's  the  use"  of  this  or  that? 
Values  know  no  national  boundaries  but  are  coterminous  with 
human  existence,  yet  there  seem  to  be  such  things  as  German 
values  and  English  values,  the  more  explicit  sense  of  values  ex- 
pressed by  Russia  and  Italy.    At  the  present  time,  when  the 
world  everywhere  is  adopting  a  critical  attitude  toward  civiliza- 
tion, we  are  inclined  to  inquire  concerning  our  own  national 
values.    Are  these  still  just  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happi- 
ness or  are  we  in  quest  of  new  values? 

510 


VALUE  AND  ENERGY  5II 

When  we  apply  our  value-judgment,  or  what  the  Germans 
and  Austrians  call  a  Werturtheil,  we  are  likely  to  apply  some 
specific  standard  rather  than  a  general  norm.  We  are  like  geome- 
ters who  apply  their  axioms  and  deduce  their  propositions, 
determine  points  and  positions,  and  draw  lines  and  figures,  but 
who  do  not  attempt  to  analyze  the  nature  or  compute  the  size 
of  the  space  with  which  they  deal.  Thus  we  do  not  raise  the 
question  whether  life  has  any  worth  or  civilization  any  value; 
we  assume,  as  we  are  bound  to  do,  that  the  civilized  existence  of 
man  has  some  value,  then  we  try  to  discover  what  that  is.  We 
cannot  step  off  the  earth,  survey  our  planet  critically,  and  decide 
whether  it  is  a  good  place  to  dwell  or  not.  We  cannot  detach 
ourselves  from  life  and  give  a  disinterested  opinion  of  human 
existence.  For  we  are  on  earth  and  in  life,  not  in  empty  space 
or  paradise,  and  it  is  here  on  earth  that  we  must  elaborate  our 
system  of  value-judgments  or  the  things  worth  while.  Hence 
our  view  of  the  values  that  civilization  has  given  us  is  an  im- 
manental  not  a  transcendental  one  and  we  measure  our  existence 
from  an  interior  point  of  view  just  as  we  compute  the  size  of  the 
universe  from  the  way  it  shapes  itself  around  us.  Now,  what  is 
the  principle  of  value  whereby  we  pass  practical  judgment  upon 
the  character  of  things? 

VALUE  AND  ENERGY 

In  taking  up  the  difficult  question  concerning  the  nature  of 
value,  we  may  observe  that,  as  a  happy  coincidence,  it  came  into 
existence  as  an  idea  about  the  time  that  science  discovered  the 
principle  of  energy,  if  we  may  put  it  that  way.  Value  and  energy 
were  discoveries  of  the  first  half  of  the  XlXth  century.  Men 
had  always  found  worth  in  things  and  the  universe  had  forever 
expressed  energy,  but  the  idea  that  value  was  a  desire  to  be 
realized  and  energy  a  work  to  be  performed  were  new  to  the 
human  mind.  For  the  sake  of  definiteness,  we  might  apply 
the  physical  idea  to  the  human  ideal  and  thus  say,  "  Value  is  the 
energy  of  the  soul  or  the  inherent  capacity  for  work."  It  has 
operated  in  the  various  phases  of  western  civilization  that  we 
have  examined  —  politicaX  social,  industrial,  economic,  artistic, 


5I2  THE  VALUES  OF  CIVILIZATION 

and  religious.  It  has  a  psychology  of  its  own  and  a  history  as 
long  as  that  of  civilization  in  the  western  world.  We  will  survey 
the  idea  as  it  arose  in  history. 

The  source  of  the  value-principle  is  to  be  found  in  Christianity, 
not  as  a  theological  system  or  an  ecclesiastical  organization, 
but  as  an  inner  system  of  spiritual  life.  Christianity  began  by 
departing  from  the  idea  of  the  Good  and  ignoring  the  cardinal 
virtues.  There  was  none  good  but  God  and  as  for  the  virtues, 
where  could  one  find  the  human  being  who  thoroughly  exempli- 
fied the  virtue  of  temperance  or  courage,  of  wisdom  or  justice? 
The  Christian  conscience  did  not  lower  the  tone  of  morality  but 
rather  raised  it;  at  the  same  time,  it  changed  the  standpoint  of 
life  from  the  idea  of  the  Good  in  itself  to  that  of  the  value  of  the 
soul  "  What  shall  it  profit  a  man  if  he  gain  the  whole  world 
and  lose  his  own  soul?  "  This  was  the  original  value-judgment 
of  the  western  world.  It  involved  a  change  from  outer  to  inner, 
from  the  physical  to  the  psychological. 

As  a  spiritual  potential,  the  principle  of  value  was  called  the 
faith  that  removes  mountains  and  overcomes  the  world.  It  is 
true  that  the  Founder  of  Christianity  did  say  that  it  was  of  no 
value  to  gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  one's  own  soul,  but 
thereby  he  implied  that  it  was  within  man's  power  both  to  win 
the  world  and  save  his  soul.  There  could  be  no  sense  in  re- 
nouncing the  world  unless  one  had  it  in  his  power  to  possess  it. 
Theology  has  been  taken  up  with  the  idea  of  saving  the  soul,  not 
that  of  winning  the  world.  Both  are  forms  of  Christian  energy; 
of  the  energy  that  makes  for  values.  The  result  of  this  energy 
has  been  to  establish  a  spiritual  order  expressed  by  the  Christian 
Church  and  an  order  of  civilization  appearing  in  the  State.  For 
Christianity,  as  a  religion  of  values,  worked  for  the  intensification 
of  man's  inner  life  and  the  extension  of  his  outer  existence.  It 
was  both  Asiatic  and  European;  ancient  and  modern. 

The  essence  of  humanity  consists  in  the  adaptation  of  inner  life 
to  outer  existence;  something  that  has  quality  to  something  that 
has  quantity,  or  the  small  to  the  large.  The  old  Asiatic  world 
conducted  this  adjustment  by  reducing  the  conditions  of  adapta- 
tion to  a  minimum;  that  is,  by  wishing  and  thinking  and  doing 
less  and  less.  The  motive  was  to  set  up  no  ideal  that  could  not 


ORIENTAL  VALUES 

be  realized.  Since  man  cannot  have  or  achieve  everything,  he 
attains  peace  by  renouncing  the  desire  thus  to  have  or  to  achieve; 
he  escapes  the  "  divine  discontent "  peculiar  to  the  Christian 
consciousness.  This  reduction  of  one's  own  world  to  a  minimum 
appeared  in  China  in  the  form  of  Taoism,  in  India  as  Buddhism, 
in  late  Greek  thought  as  Stoicism.  All  are  foreign  to  the  Chris- 
tian conception  of  value. 

ORIENTAL  VALUES 

From  the  Texts  of  Tdoism^  we  extract  the  following  signifi- 
cant sentences: 

"I  consider  doing  nothing  to  be  the  great  enjoyment,  while 
ordinary  people  consider  it  to  be  a  great  evil.  Hence  it  is  said, 
Perfect  enjoyment  is  to  be  without  enjoyment;  the  highest  praise 
is  to  be  without  praise.  .  .  .  Heaven  does  nothing,  and  thence 
comes  its  serenity;  earth  does  nothing  and  thence  comes  its  rest. 
By  the  union  of  these  two  inactivities,  all  things  are  produced. 
All  things  in  their  variety  grow  from  this  inaction.  Hence  it  is 
said,  Heaven  and  earth  do  nothing,  and  yet  there  is  nothing  that 
they  do  not  do.  But  what  man  is  there  who  can  attain  to  this 
inaction?  ...  To  exercise  no  thought  and  anxious  considera- 
tion is  the  first  step  toward  knowing  the  Tao;  to  dwell  nowhere 
and  to  do  nothing  is  the  first  step  toward  resting  in  the  Tao; 
to  start  from  nowhere  and  pursue  no  path  is  the  first  step  to- 
ward making  the  Tao  your  own.  He  who  practices  the  Tao 
daily  diminishes  his  doing.  The  perfect  man  is  said  to  do  nothing 
and  the  greatest  sage  to  originate  nothing,  such  language  show- 
ing that  they  look  to  heaven  and  earth  as  their  model." 

The  Hindu  mind,  just  as  fully  despairing  of  its  inability  to 
cope  with  the  world,  indulged  similar  views  and  was  equally 
glad  to  praise  inactivity.  This  appeared  in  the  philosophical 
system  of  Yoga  and  the  Buddhistic  religion.  In  the  Bh&gavad 
Gita,  which  has  sometimes  been  compared  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment, the  god  Krishna  asserts,  "Casting  off  works  and  the 
rule  of  works  both  lead  to  bliss;  but  of  'these  the  rule  of  works 
is  higher  than  casting  off  works.  ...  He  who  in  doing  works 

1  Books  XVHI,  XXII. 

S.T.—34 


5i4  THE  VALUES  OF  CIVILIZATION 

lays  his  works  on  Brahma  and  puts  away  attachment  is  not 
defiled,  as  the  lotus  leaf  is  unsullied  by  the  water.  .  .  .  With- 
out undertaking  works,  no  man  can  come  to  worklessness.  .  .  . 
But  for  the  man  whose  delight  is  in  Self,  who  is  contented  with 
Self  and  is  glad  of  Self,  there  is  nought  for  which  he  should 
work.  ...  He  who  beholds  in  work  no-work  and  in  no-work 
work  is  the  man  of  understanding  among  mortals."  Buddhism 
goes  deeper  than  this  in  that  Buddhism  penetrates  to  the  core 
of  human  existence  in  desire.  Since,  according  to  the  Buddhistic 
conception  of  things,  the  world  is  not  destined  to  grant  man  his 
desires,  the  only  thing  to  do  is  to  reduce  and  ultimately  eradicate 
them.  Then  one  will  come  to  an  understanding  with  his  world; 
if  he  gains  nothing,  he  loses  nothing,  since  he  really  asked 
nothing. 

A  faint  repercussion  of  such  noble  despair  appears  in  the 
writings  of  die  late  Stoics.  The  founder  of  this  movement, 
Zeno,  was  supposed  to  have  had  an  Asiatic  origin,  which  may  ac- 
count for  the  tendency  of  the  stoical  mind  to  relinquish  the 
world.  Before  the  appearance  of  Stoicism,  at  the  end  of  the 
classic  period,  the  Greeks  had  entertained  the  ideal  of  world 
supremacy  by  means  of  art  and  philosophy  with  their  dominant 
ideals  of  Form.  What  the  Greeks  lacked  was  the  idea  of  Force, 
the  energy  of  the  soul  that  makes  for  value.  The  late  Stoics  seek 
to  adjust  the  will  to  the  world  by  making  the  intellect  distinguish 
between  the  things  that  are  in  one's  power  and  the  things  that 
are  not  If  the  Christian  had  drawn  that  line  there  would 
have  been  no  modern  period  in  our  sense  of  the  term,  no  dis- 
covery, invention,  or  enterprise.  There  is  much  that  is  noble 
in  the  writings  of  these  men,  as  Epictetus  and  Marcus  Aurelius, 
but  at  heart  their  ideas  are  paralyzing  and  fatal.  They  are  often 
read  by  youths  who,  on  the  threshold  of  life,  despair  of  their 
powers  and  seek  temporary  comfort  in  the  anaemic  idea  of  the 
things  beyond  one's  power.  In  the  Christian  consciousness  and 
according  to  the  Christian  will,  there  is  nothing  conceivable  that 
is  beyond  man's  power.  "All  power  is  given  unto  me,"  said 
Christ,  "All  things  are  yours,"  said  St.  Paul.  The  modern 
Christian  is  quite  aware  of  this,  although  he  may  understand 
"  all  things "  in  a  rather  practical  way* 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEA  OF  WORTH 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IDEA  OF  WORTH 


515 


The  Christian  religion,  came  into  the  world  in  the  form  o£ 
enterprise.  It  generated  belief  in  mankind  and  engendered  value 
as  energy.  Tinged  somewhat  with  the  oriental  ideal  of  re- 
nunciation, Christianity  put  this  principle  to  good  use.  Let  one 
lose  his  life  in  the  world,  behold!  he  saves  it.  Let  him  hate  his 
little  existence  and  he  will  begin  to  love  his  larger  life.  The 
result  was  refreshing,  regenerating.  "Ask  and  ye  shall  re- 
ceive; seek  and  ye  shall  find;  knock  and  it  shall  be  opened  unto 
you."  Unlike  oriental  systems  of  thought  and  worship,  Chris- 
tianity did  not  attempt  to  decrease  man's  desires  but  sought  to 
increase  his  power  to  achieve  them,  hence  the  desire  for  things 
and  the  energy  that  wins  them  began  to  be  adjusted.  The 
special  method  was  that  of  religion  —  faith  in  the  individual, 
salvation  of  the  world,  and  the  establishment  of  the  Church. 
But  the  general  nature  was  broader,  deeper;  it  tended  to  re- 
lease the  inherent  powers  of  the  soul,  raise  all  men  to  a  higher 
level,  and  unite  them  in  a  great  world-movement.  This  is  the 
reason  why  we  find  in  Christianity  the  origin  of  the  value- 
principle;  it  was  inherent  in  Christ's  thought  and  the  basis  of 
his  Kingdom. 

As  the  Kingdom  of  God  came  without  observation,  so  the 
principle  of  value  was  slow  in  receiving  recognition.  Indeed, 
it  was  not  until  modern  science  released  the  forces  of  nature  and 
powers  of  the  mind  that,  as  though  it  were  doing  a  miraculous 
work,  the  idea  of  human  value  in  the  world  was  clearly  seen.  It 
had  dawned  in  the  idea  of  the  Church,  flashed  out  in  the  crusades, 
and  brightened  into  chivalry;  but  the  value  idea  implicit  in  these 
movements  was  not  clear  or  well  founded.  Christian  values  were 
felt  as  emotions  and  employed  practically  in  the  development 
of  institutions;  these  contained  the  Christian  sense  of  life's 
worth,  but  did  not  express  it  as  a  philosophical  idea.  But 
the  values  of  life  which  the  ancients  had  sought  in  the  formal 
virtues  exhibited  by  the  perfect  State  were  incorporated  in 
religion  and  became  an  overwhelming  spiritual  force.  The 
realm  of  values  had  been  unearthed,  a  new  continent  of  life 
discovered. 


THE  VALUES  OF  CIVILIZATION 

MODERN  THEORIES  OF  VALUE 

The  recognition  of  this  value  did  not  appear  until  the  end 
of  the  XVIIIth  century  when  it  was  given  by  Kant.  Before 
that  time,  modern  ethics  had  revived  Epicureanism  and  Stoicism 
in  the  form  of  Hedonism  and  Intuitionism,  or  so  much  old 
wine  in  new  bottles.  It  was  Kant  who  discovered  the  new 
world  of  values  although,  like  Columbus,  he  did  not  realize 
what  he  had  done.  So  intent  was  he  upon  enforcing  his  supreme 
law  of  duty  in  the  Categorical  Imperative  that  he  did  not  ap- 
preciate the  spiritual  content  within  this  rationalistic  form. 
However,  he  did  make  direct  reference  to  the  principle  in  ques- 
tion when  he  said,  "Whatever  has  a  value  can  be  replaced  by 
something  else  which  is  equivalent;  whatever,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  above  all  value  and  therefore  admits  of  no  equivalent 
has  a  dignity."  2  Kant  made  a  more  personal  approach  to  the 
idea  of  value  when  he  added  a  second  imperative:  "  So  act  as  to 
treat  humanity,  whether  in  thine  own  person  or  in  that  of  an- 
other, in  every  case  as  an  end  and  never  as  a  means  only."3 
The  resulting  idea  is  —  man  has  worth  and  the  world  of  hu- 
manity is  a  kingdom  of  values.  A  generation  later,  Schopenhauer 
gave  more  solidity  to  the  idea  of  value  by  raising  the  total 
question  whether  life  itself  has  any  worth.  His  conclusion 
was  negative,  unfavorable.  Life  for  him  meant  the  blind  ex- 
pression of  the  Will-to-Live  and  the  misery  that  follows  from 
it.  Nevertheless  we  are  indebted  to  this  pessimist  for  present- 
ing the  question  of  the  life-value,  which  we  can  consider  as 
seems  best  to  us. 

After  the  general  principle  of  value  had  been  established  by 
Kant  and  Schopenhauer,  other  German  thinkers  proceeded  to 
a  more  definite  analysis  of  the  idea.  F.  E.  Beneke  (1798-1854), 
the  German  psychologist,  placed  the  idea  of  value  upon  the  basis 
of  experience,  making  it  comprehensible  in  terms  of  pleasure. 
The  German  philosopher  Lotze,  returning  to  the  ideas  of  Kant, 
endeavored  to  superimpose  upon  the  world  of  intellectual  forms 
the  world  of  ethical  values,  thereby  making  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  What-is  and  the  What-ought-to-be.  At  the  close  o£ 

2  Metaphysics  of  Ethics,  p.  64.  a  /£.,  p.  57. 


FORM,  PIETY,  AND  FORCE 

the  XlXth  century,  the  principle  of  value  was  formulated  more 
definitely  by  the  Austrian  thinkers  Meinong  and  Ehrenfels,  one 
defining  the  value  of  a  thing  in  terms  of  its  pleasurability,  the 
other  using  desirability  as  the  basis  of  the  value-judgment.  In 
addition  to  this  direct  and  practical  conception  of  what  has  worth 
for  mankind,  there  have  been  derivative  and  theoretical  develop- 
ments of  the  principle  which  have  sought  to  bring  about  an  ap- 
proach between  the  validity  of  an  idea  in  itself  and  its  value  for 
the  mind  that  entertains  it. 

Then  there  has  been  the  brilliant  but  unreliable  treatment  of 
the  question  by  Nietzsche,  who,  following  Schopenhauer's  doc- 
trine of  the  will,  introduced  the  idea  of  the  Will-to-power  and 
urged  a  "  Transvaluation  of  all  Values  "  whereby  the  modern 
man  might  repudiate  Christianity  and  reinstate  paganism  or  its 
equivalent.  From  Nietzsche  we  can  appropriate  the  idea  that 
values,  like  energies,  can  be  changed,  whereby  we  who  feel  no 
such  bitterness  toward  the  existing  order  of  things  may  still 
regard  it  as  in  need  of  revaluation.  That  will  yield  us  the  fu- 
turism that  Nietzsche  so  madly  sought.  Suppose,  then,  we 
adopt  Nietzsche's  definition  and  look  upon  ourselves  as  valu- 
ing animals;  all  things  old  will  begin  to  assume  new  forms. 

FORM,  PIETY,  AND  FORCE 

Before  we  can  evaluate  the  present  and  the  future,  we  must 
view  the  past.  What  values  has  mankind  been  pursuing  in  the 
last  three  thousand  years  ?  Historical  generalizations  are  bound 
to  be  faulty  since  nations  do  not  assemble  themselves  in  groups 
like  animals  that  organize  the  life  of  the  species  upon  the  basis 
of  instinct.  But  we  must  run  the  risk  and  excuse  ourselves  on 
the  ground  that  we  are  seeking  illustrations.  Accordingly  we 
may  assume  that  the  ancient  ideal  was  that  of  Form.  The 
Greeks  sought  this  in  art,  the  Romans  in  law.  Both  nations 
sought  to  perfect  something  and  render  it  permanent.  There 
were  many  things  about  their  ways  of  thinking  and  doing  that 
were  not  formal,  but  the  idea  of  a  pattern  ever  prevailed.  The 
mediaeval  conception  of  life  was  that  of  Piety;  the  pattern  was 
a  divine  one.  Ancient  forms  persisted  but  they  were  invested 


THE  VALUES  OF  CIVILIZATION 

with  a  spiritual  content  that  overflowed  the  banks  of  the  canals 
the  ancients  had  cut  for  them.  The  Fathers  of  the  Church  and 
the  Schoolmen  were  Greek,  but  only  outwardly.  And  with  all 
their  deviations  from  their  central  purpose  they  pursued  the 
value  of  Piety.  With  moderns,  who  are  nearer  to  us,  the  pre- 
vailing ideal  has  been  that  of  Force.  The  dynamic  value  could 
hardly  escape  attention  when  nature  was  revealing  its  supreme 
system  of  natural  force.  Hence,  if  we  dare  sum  up  the  history 
of  the  western  world  in  terms  of  that  which  has  had  worth,  we 
may  speak  of  the  values  of  Form,  Piety,  and  Force. 

Before  we  can  stipulate  the  special  values  of  our  century,  or 
indicate  the  characteristic  values  of  individual  nations,  we  must 
come  to  an  understanding  with  the  general  principle  of  value. 
This  we  can  do  without  much  trouble  if  we  will  turn  away 
from  the  idea  that  reality  is  something  substantial  and  fixed. 
Of  course  we  still  incline  to  the  ancient  notion  that  reality  is 
a  substance  and  the  modern  but  now  classic  conception  of  matter 
as  a  material  thing.  But  we  are  learning  that  physical  reality 
is  something  much  more  like  energy.  It  is  capacity  for  work,  a 
tendency,  or  work  still  to  be  performed.  Energy  is  not  a  reality 
in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term;  it  is  a  kind  of  realizing,  or  at 
best  a  realization.  Its  stability  is  assured  by  its  tendency  to  con- 
serve itself  without  loss  or  gain  rather  than  to  be  itself  as  a  thing. 

Value  is  the  energy  of  the  soul;  it  is  inherent  capacity  for  work, 
work  that  is  being  performed  but  has  still  to  reach  anything  like 
realization.  Now,  that  realizing  principle  of  life,  observable  in 
individuals  like  Shakespeare  and  Goethe,  in  nations  like  Eng- 
land and  France,  is  value.  It  is  difficult  to  lay  hold  of  it,  as  in 
the  case  of  energy,  but  not  difficult  to  appreciate  it.  The  ancient 
life-ideal  was  that  of  the  Good,  a  kind  of  moral  thing-in-itself. 
It  seemed  like  a  rare  metal  that  one  could  find,  a  new  continent 
he  might  discover.  Its  actual  presence  became  even  more  defi- 
nite in  the  virtues  that  sprang  from  it  —  courage  and  temper- 
ance, wisdom  and  justice.  The  modern  conception  of  value  is 
not  so  solid.  It  is  a  force  within  humanity  which,  like  the 
struggle  for  existence,  tends  to  make  humanity  realize  itself.  The 
principle  of  value  instead  of  merely  existing  in  the  world  like  the 
Good,  is  rolling  through  the  world  like  a  snowball,  which  picks 


VALUE  AND  HUMAN  LIFE 

up  its  immediate  past,  incorporates  this  into  itself,  and  crushes 
its  way  on  into  the  immediate  future.  Indeed,  there  is  no  ethical 
ideal  comparable  to  that  of  value  in  the  expression  of  progress. 

VALUE  AND  HUMAN  LIFE 

Just  as  there  is  energy  inherent  in  the  universe,  so  is  there 
inherent  value  in  human  life.  Such  human  value  assumes  the 
energetic  form  of  strength.  For  the  most  part,  this  strength  does 
not  exist  as  a  thing  that  might  be  compared  with  the  human 
body;  it  is  promissory  and  potential,  or  something  that  can  come 
into  existence  through  exercise.  Dropping  these  physical  and 
physiological  analogies  and  resorting  to  psychology,  we  may 
speak  of  man  as  the  creature  who,  in  part,  emerges  from  the 
animal  order  and  exerts  himself  in  order  to  become  human.  It 
is,  perhaps,  as  Ibsen  expressed  it  in  The  Emperor  Julian:* 

"  So  shall  it  be  when  the  Right  Man  comes. 
And  who  is  the  Right  Man? 
He  comes  into  being  in  the  man  who  wills  himself." 

The  same  is  true  in  some  degree  of  man  as  such;  he  also  comes 
into  being  as  a  self-willed  creature.  The  Right  Man  or  the  Right 
Nation  is  that  one  which  sees  the  value  of  its  personal,  national 
existence  and  brings  its  real  self  into  being. 

The  individual  does  this  or  has  it  done  to  him  through  educa- 
tion. Society  effects  it  or  produces  it  within  by  means  of  culture. 
The  State  arrives  at  national  selfhood  by  its  civilization.  The 
aim  of  individual  life  is  not  always  clear  since  the  issues  of  life 
are  many,  but  it  is  reasonable  to  assume  that  both  in  ideals  and 
actuality  the  individual  aspires  to  get  value  out  of  life.  In  a 
community  with  its  complexity  of  interests,  the  social  aim  is  not 
always  apparent,  but  it  is  clear  that  a  community  is  tending 
toward  the  values  that  seem  within  its  reach.  In  a  political 
State,  where  manufacture,  trade,  war,  and  the  like  stand  out  most 
eminently,  the  undercurrent  of  energy  is  valuational.  The  State 
is  trying  to  get  lvalue  out  of  the  world.  This  tendency  is  recog- 
nized under  different  names  —  "  balance  of  power,"  "  a  place  in 

4  Op.  dt.t  Act  III. 


520  THE  VALUES  OF  CIVILIZATION 

the  sun,"  "  irredentism," "  making  the  world  safe  for  democracy;' 
and  the  like. 

At  the  present  time,  the  western  world  and  to  some  extent 
the  Orient  also,  is  debating  the  respective  values  of  war  and 
peace.  As  we  shall  see  when  we  come  to  The  Present  Outloo\, 
wherein  the  supposed  and  actual  values  of  the  World  War  are 
discussed,  the  idea  of  war  probably  because  of  the  extraordinary 
activities  that  it  involves  creates  the  delusion  that  there  are 
positive  values  in  war  by  means  of  which  a  nation  hopes  to 
secure  the  foreign  possession  or  foreign  trade  of  the  nation 
against  which  it  contends.  On  the  other  hand,  peace  tends  to 
create  the  impression  of  stagnation  through  inactivity,  since 
it  does  not  enlist  the  value-energy  of  the  soul  in  anything 
definite  or  different  from  the  routine  of  industry  and  trade. 
In  the  XlXth  century  it  was  supposed  that  industrial  activity 
would  inhibit  militaristic  activity,  but  the  recent  war  revealed 
the  fallacy  of  the  economic  argument.  Nations  sacrificed  a 
large  volume  of  trade  with  one  another  for  the  sake  of  a  smaller 
volume  of  possible  trade  with  their  rivals'  dependencies.  But 
although  the  war-value  of  nations  has  been  discounted  if  not 
deprived  of  all  its  appeal,  the  western  world  is  still  under  the 
impression  that  there  is  worth  in  warfare.  The  difficulty  with 
the  peace-value  is  found  in  its  negative  character,  since  it  means 
the  absence  of  war  rather  than  the  presence  of  something  positive. 
But  the  creation  of  peace-values  is  perhaps  the  greatest  of  all 
problems  of  present  civilization. 

WHAT  is  VALUE? 

Now  we  cannot  probe  very  deeply  into  the  lives  of  present 
civilizations  unless  we  sharpen  our  instrument.  We  must  have 
a  keen  idea  of  what  we  mean  by  value,  and  this  will  require  a 
certain  degree  of  psychological  analysis.  The  widest  range  of 
the  subject  may  be  measured  by  the  concept  of  "  Interest."  The 
values  of  men  are  the  things  that  interest  them  or  may  be  said 
to  be  of  interest  to  them.  It  is  no  paradox  to  say  that  many  men 
are  not  interested  in  the  interesting,  but  are  absorbed  by  what 
is  not  interesting  at  all.  Health,  for  example,  is  of  interest  to 


WHAT  IS  VALUE?  521 

mankind;  but  it  does  not  follow  from  this  indisputable  propo- 
sition that  every  individual  is  thinking  about  hygiene  and  watch- 
ing his  diet.  Wealth,  on  the  contrary,  may  not  be  as  much  a 
matter  of  interest  as  it  would  appear  to  be  by  the  way  it  looms 
up  in  human  life  today,  but  this  idea  does  not  prevent  people 
everywhere  from  being  excessively  interested  in  money  and  what 
it  will  buy.  What,  then,  is  this  mysterious  principle  called 
"Interest?" 

If  we  let  the  idea  of  interest  serve  as  the  general  tone  of  mind 
in  the  completeness  of  its  feelings,  volitions,  and  ideas,  we  shall 
be  in  a  position  to  appreciate  it  more  keenly.  That  which  in- 
terests the  intellect  catches  the  attention  and  directs  the  mind 
along  definite  lines.  These  lines  may  be  marked  by  the  desire 
to  work  out  a  puzzle,  solve  a  mathematical  problem,  or  map  out 
various  constellations  in  the  sky.  When  appeal  is  made  to  the 
will,  one's  powers  are  so  engaged  that  one  goes  about  some 
definite  task  like  building  a  house  or  setting  up  a  business.  All 
that  an  individual  accomplishes  in  his  life  might  be  called  the 
objectification  of  his  interests,  although  it  may  be  more  conven- 
ient to  refer  to  the  fortune  he  has  made,  the  position  he  achieved, 
or  the  reputation  gained.  With  nations,  the  kinds  of  civilization 
they  have  wrought  out  might  be  called  their  national  interests, 
although  it  seems  simpler  to  speak  of  Babylon  and  Assyria, 
Greece  and  Rome,  England  and  France.  However,  we  are  not 
thus  prevented  from  referring  to  Babylonian  or  Grecian  or  Brit- 
ish values  —  the  things  they  willed  and  wrought. 

The  emotional  side  of  interest  needs  more  complete  descrip- 
tion, fuller  discussion.  Interest  itself  is  of  an  emotional  charac- 
ter; it  is  something  that  we  feel.  Hence,  instead  of  applying  the 
idea  of  interest  in  general,  we  shall  penetrate  our  subject  more 
deeply  if  we  sharpen  the  instrument  down  to  feeling.  Here, 
likewise,  we  have  something  we  know  by  experience.  Feeling 
identifies  itself  at  once  in  the  form  of  pleasure  and  pain,  which 
assume  a  passive,  receptive  form.  Feeling  appears  again  in  a 
dynamic  and  aggressive  way  as  desire  and  aversion.  These  are 
pleasure  and  pain  in  action.  These  factors  in  our  problem  give 
us  no  trouble  since  we  know  what  they  mean  and  how  they  work. 
Some  trouble  may  arise,  however,  when  we  find  it  necessary  to 


522  THE  VALUES  OF  CIVILIZATION 

distinguish  between  pleasure  and  the  pleasurable,  desire  and  the 
desirable.  Then  we  shall  have  to  apply  reason  to  emotion  and 
begin  to  rationalize  our  simple  feelings* 

VALUE  AS  PLEASURE 

Until  we  discover  that  our  views  are  inadequate,  we  will  make 
this  simple  assertion:  "Value  is  pleasure."  This  means  that  we 
shall  take  a  simple,  agreeable  experience  and  look  at  it.  That 
which  pleases  the  tongue  or  stomach  registers  itself  as  an  agree- 
able feeling.  But  that  is  not  the  total  experience;  the  mind  re- 
acts upon  the  immediate  feeling  and  pronounces  it  worth  while. 
The  feeling  has  value.  On  the  other  hand,  one  may  eat  what  is 
pleasant  to  the  taste  and  for  the  time  satisfactory  to  the  stomach, 
but  because  of  subsequent  indigestion  conclude  that  the  gastro- 
nomic experience  was  not  worth  while.  The  preliminary  feel- 
ing of  pleasure  did  not  have  value.  Apparently  our  feelings  are 
too  superficial  to  make  valuing  animals  of  us. 

In  addition  to  superficiality,  there  is  another  phase  of  feeling 
that  makes  it  a  poor  candidate  for  the  position  of  value  in  human 
life.  The  feeling  of  pleasure  is  for  the  time  being  only,  which 
fact  we  recognize  when  we  say,  "  You  cannot  eat  your  cake  and 
have  it."  The  pleasure  of  eating  cake  or  anything  else  pleasant 
comes  at  the  time  of  eating  plus  a  moment  before  and  a  moment 
after.  The  feeling  is  fixed  in  time.  The  same  is  true  of  every 
pleasure;  it  belongs  to  the  class  of  things  attached  to  special, 
privileged  moments.  Now,  value  is  a  condition  of  consciousness 
that  has  no  such  discontinuity  about  it;  value  is  a  frame  of  mind, 
a  constant  tendency  or  habit.  We  might  imagine  that  the  mind 
could  stretch  its  feeling  of  pleasure  backwards  and  forwards  to 
make  it  fill  up  the  gap  between  pleasures,  but  the  mind  does  not 
do  that.  If  there  are  six  hours  between  meals,  we  do  not  devote 
the  first  three  of  these  recalling  the  past  pleasure  of  eating  and 
the  last  three  to  the  anticipation  of  the  next  meal.  Pleasures  are 
experiences  that  we  do  not  recall  in  the  past  or  anticipate  in  the 
future. 

In  order  to  escape  from  the  predicament  produced  by  the 
temporal  fixation  of  a  feeling  in  its  special  "  now,"  we  seek  to 


VALUE  AND  DESIRE  523 

make  it  more  flexible  by  calling  pleasure  the  "  pleasurable."  By 
this  we  mean  that  an  experience  is  calculated  to  give  pleasure. 
We  are  not  having  the  feeling  at  the  time,  for  we  are  not  eating 
or  reading  or  traveling  as  we  would  like  to  do;  but  we  judge  that 
food  or  a  book  or  a  trip  could  give  us  pleasure  and  conclude  that 
it  must  have  value  for  us.  Furthermore,  one  can  render  his 
idea  of  pleasurability  still  more  flexible  by  concluding  that  cer- 
tain experiences,  while  not  actually  pleasurable  to  one's  self,  are 
likely  to  be  satisfactory  to  others.  In  this  spirit  one  says,  "  I  do 
not  happen  to  like  caviar,  but  I  can  see  how  others  may  be  fond 
of  it.  German  opera  does  not  appeal  to  me,  but  doubtless  it  is 
of  interest  to  a  certain  class  of  people.  I  am  not  fond  of  science, 
but  I  recognize  its  importance."  In  this  manner,  one  leaps  from 
his  private  sense  of  pleasure  as  though  from  a  springboard  to 
plunge  into  human  experience  as  a  whole.  But  even  the  more 
adaptable  idea  of  the  pleasure  is  not  sufficient  as  a  determinant 
of  value.  It  lacks  the  dynamic  quality  which  life  demands. 

VALUE  AND  DESIRE 

The  dynamic  quality  of  feeling  is  found  in  desire.  This  is 
feeling  plus  volition.  When  we  desire  an  object,  we  set  our 
sense  of  pleasure  in  motion  and  proceed  toward  it.  When  we 
feel  aversion,  we  make  our  implicit  sense  of  pain  draw  us  away 
from  what  we  do  not  desire.  In  its  dynamic  quality,  then,  the 
principle  of  desire  seems  more  effective  than  the  passive  sense 
of  pleasure.  But  desire  is  more  than  a  dynamic  feeling;  it  is 
more  than  feeling  but  less  than  will.  The  result  is  that  we  can 
desire  just  as  we  do  desire;  it  may  be  the  pleasurable,  the  in- 
different, or  even  the  painful.  The  volitional,  the  willful  factor 
in  desire  makes  it  relatively  independent  of  mere  feeling.  There 
is  no  question  about  our  desiring  pleasurable  experiences.  But 
we  can  desire  and  later  find  satisfaction  in  things  that  are  matters 
of  emotional  indifference.  "  Yes,  I  read  the  book,  saw  the  play, 
took  the  trip  to  Montreal.  I  can't  say  that  I  enjoyed  them, 
but  still  I'm  glad  I  know  the  book,  witnessed  the  play,  and  saw 
the  city."  We  can  desire  the  painful  also.  This  may  amount 
to  playing  the  hard  game,  climbing  the  steep,  craggy  mountain, 


THE  VALUES  OF  CIVILIZATION 

or  mastering  a  difficult  subject,  such  as  calculus.  There  was  no 
promise  of  pleasure  at  the  outset,  no  feeling  of  pleasure  at  the 
outcome  of  these  rugged  experiences,  but  the  tough  nature  of  the 
valuing  animal  made  him  desire  to  do  the  unpleasant  thing. 
Finally  he  finds  satisfaction  in  his  performance. 

But  desire,  like  pleasure,  is  subject  to  chronological  limi- 
tations. Pleasure  is  always  in  the  present,  desire  in  the  future. 
Now,  the  principle  of  value  is  not  temporal;  it  abides,  carries 
on,  and  spans  the  whole  range  of  man's  life.  For  this  reason, 
the  exponent  of  the  value-theory  of  life  is  forced  to  shift  from 
desire  to  the  "  desirable  "  just  as  he  was  impelled  to  change  from 
pleasure  to  the  "  pleasurable."  Now,  the  desirable  is  that  which 
we  believe  to  be  in  harmony  with  man's  nature  as  such,  even  if  no 
human  being  actually  desires  it.  Value  is  that  which  is  "  to  be 
desired."  "  The  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous 
altogether.  More  are  they  to  be  desired  than  gold  and  much 
fine  gold.  Sweeter  also  are  they  than  honey  and  the  honey- 
comb.5' Thus  spake  the  Psalmist.  But  he  did  not  assert  that 
man  in  his  finite  capacity  actually  desires  the  principles  of  right- 
eousness to  the  extreme  of  preferring  them  to  the  sweet  taste  of 
honey  and  the  obvious  advantage  of  gold.  He  exercised  value- 
judgment  and  declares  upon  the  basis  of  good  reason  that  man 
realizes  the  desirability  of  what  he  does  not  actually  desire. 

VALUES  AND  DESIDERATA 

There  are  certain  examples  of  human  preference  that  tend  to 
reveal  this  cardinal  distinction  between  the  desired  and  the  de- 
sirable; between  the  finite  nature  of  man  and  his  infinite  ability 
to  reason;  between  man  and  Man,  the  valuing  animal  as  such. 
The  exemplification  of  the  desired-undesirable  is  found  in 
war  and  wealth.  In  the  minds  of  modern  people,  if  we  except 
professional  militarists  and  munition-makers,  war  is  judged  to  be 
undesirable.  We  see  now,  after  the  greatest  but  least  satisfactory 
of  wars,  that  human  conflict  is  irrational.  Yet  we  desire  war  to 
the  extent  that  a  slight  pretext  will  promote  patriotism,  urge  us 
to  arms,  and  engender  bloodshed.  The  case  of  wealth  is  analo- 
gous but  not  so  convincing.  The  best  of  men  are  convinced  that 


VALUES  AND  DESIDERATA  525 

the  pursuit  of  wealth  for  its  own  sake,  especially  in  the  modern 
manner,  is  irrational,  yet  all  of  us  actually  desire  such  irrational 
wealth.  In  the  instances  of  both  war  and  wealth,  we  feel  and 
act  contrary  to  ideas  and  values,  yet  the  rational  idea  of  value  as 
that  which  is  to  be  desired  persists. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  have  at  least  two  parallel  cases  of  the 
desirable-undesired:  in  piety  and  death.  Practically  everybody 
believes  in  and  praises  that  degree  of  moral  perfection  we  have 
called  piety;  practically  everybody  wishes  to  see  it  exemplified  in 
the  lives  of  others.  But  scarcely  anybody  wishes  such  a  paralyz- 
ing ideal  for  himself.  "  The  judgments  of  the  Lord  "  are  merely 
"  to  be  desired."  The  same  is  true  of  death,  and  all  the  more  so. 
Everybody  believes  in  death,  for  it  would  be  infinitely  worse  to 
live  on  instead  of  dying.  Nevertheless,  no  one,  if  we  except  the 
aged  person,  the  chronic  invalid,  or  the  suicide,  actually  desires 
the  desirable  termination  of  life  in  death.  Here,  again,  reason 
saves  us;  reason  tells  us  that  our  emotional  appreciation  of  life- 
experiences —  of  war  and  wealth,  piety  and  death  —  is  at  fault 
and  will  remain  fallacious  until  rationalized  in  the  form  of  the 
judgmental  desire,  the  value-judgment. 

If  values  are  the  genuine  desiderata  of  the  human  soul,  what 
can  be  said  of  the  various  national  values  that  have  appeared  in 
the  course  of  history?  It  is  by  no  means  easy  to  determine  the 
desires  of  the  nations  except  as  this  is  done  in  a  broad  and  cur- 
sory manner.  We  feel  that  the  desires  of  the  East  are  different 
from  those  of  the  West  and  that  the  things  sought  for  in  antiquity 
have  been  supplanted  by  the  new  desires  of  the  modern  man.  In 
the  empires  of  the  Babylonians  and  Assyrians,  one  observes  a  de- 
sire for  splendor  and  luxury.  The  Chinese  mind  exhibits  a  de- 
cided inclination  for  regularity  and  a  staid  condition  of  existence. 
The  ancient  Hebrews  manifested  a  wish  for  earthly  righteousness 
and  a  national  prosperity  extending  into  the  far  future.  In  the 
history  of  the  Greeks,  we  observe  a  noble  passion  for  wisdom  and 
a  longing  for  form,  while  the  records  of  Rome  reveal  tendencies 
toward  dignity  in  the  Roman  citizens  and  power  in,  the  world  at 
large.  Such  were  the  values  of  the  ancient  order.  What  things 
have  come  to  be  esteemed  valuable  ki  the  new  world? 


526  THE  VALUES  OF  CIVILIZATION 

THE  DESIRES  OF  THE  NATIONS 

The  desires,  or  values,  of  modern  nations  are  not  so  clear; 
they  have  not  passed  on  into  perspective  and  our  conception  of 
them  is  likely  to  be  colored  by  our  own  desires  as  citizens.  Since 
the  discovery  of  America,  the  values  of  European  nations  have 
been  influenced  by  their  desire  to  colonize  in  the  western  hemi- 
sphere, Spain  in  South  America,  France  and  England  in  North. 
In  the  case  of  England,  the  effect  of  insular  position  has  been 
toward  an  expansion  which  has  resulted  in  world-wide  empire. 
Such  national  ambitions  betray  themselves  in  various  expressions 
of  pride,  or  "  such  boastings  as  the  Gentiles  use."  Thus  we  have 
such  slogans  as  "  Britannia  rules  the  waves  ";  "  Deutschland  ubei* 
Alles  "; "  France  d' abort ";  "  The  Land  of  the  Free  and  the  Home 
of  the  Brave."  Inwardly  viewed,  England  sets  value  upon  aristoc- 
racy not  only  in  the  official  nobility  but  also  in  the  type  of  man 
recognized  as  a  gentleman.  Germany  is  expressive  of  thorough- 
ness, or  dcutsche  Grundlich\eit;  this  shows  itself  in  German 
system,  German  efficiency  in  war  and  peace.  France  still  rejoices 
in  national  homogeneity  and  that  sense  of  form  which  has  created 
the  expression  la  belle  France.  The  United  States  is  still  trying  to 
rejoice  in  its  pioneer  sense  of  freedom  from  authority  but  is  some- 
what disconcerted  by  the  way  in  which  irresponsible  immigrants, 
delivered  from  the  control  of  their  native  lands,  have  developed 
what  might  be  styled  a  system  of  lawlessness.  Russia  and  Italy 
are  persuaded  that  there  is  national  value  in  made-to-order  forms 
of  government  of  Communism  and  Fascism. 

What  is  the  American  norm  of  value  and  what  the  seven  deadly 
values  of  the  day?  From  the  discovery  of  this  continent  until 
within  immediate  memory,  "  America  "  has  been  synonymous 
with  "  opportunity."  It  was  opportunity  for  the  discoverer,  the 
settler,  and  the  immigrant,  but  now  the  rest  of  the  world  is  leav- 
ing it  to  itself.  The  era  of  opportunity  has  closed,  the  frontiers 
have  disappeared,  and  conservation  has  taken  the  place  of  exploita- 
tion. The  tone  of  national  life  changed  during  the  Civil  War 
from  the  political  to  the  industrial,  and  the  .period  that  Lincoln 
marked  when  he  spoke  of  the  founding  of  the  nation  "  four  score 
and  seven  years  ago  "  bears  only  a  faint  resemblance  to  the  period 


COMMUNICATION  527 

of  three  score  and  ten  years  since.  The  first  period  was  marked 
by  the  founding  of  the  Republic,  the  principle  of  states'  rights,  the 
rise  of  national  parties,  and  deductive  legislation  growing  out 
of  the  Constitution.  In  the  second  period,  we  find  the  more 
brilliant  minds  preferring  private  enterprise  to  public  life,  the  de- 
velopment of  business  organizations  rather  than  political  parties, 
industrial  inventions  in  place  of  political  programs,  and  legisla- 
tion based  chiefly  on  expediency.  Business  has  surmounted  poli- 
tics and  labor  movements  taken  the  place  of  political  develop- 
ments. These  are  transvaluations  which  have  come  about  in  the 
natural  course  of  human  events. 

/ 

OUR  SEVEN  DEADLY  VALUES 

In  addition  to  these  general  values  that  concern  the  nation  as 
much  as  the  people,  there  are  certain  popular  values  which  are 
so  marked  as  to  demand  special  notice.  The  American  mind, 
if  not  the  minds  of  other  nations,  has  become  keenly  conscious 
of  its  desires  and  has  let  these  crystallize  in  the  form  of  values. 
Most  of  them  are  by-products  of  American  technics,  for  the  ma- 
chine has  both  affected  the  appearance  of  the  world  and  changed 
the  desires  of  those  who  live  in  it.  No  longer  is  the  average  citi- 
zen contented  to  dwell  under  his  own  vine  and  fig  tree;  he  de- 
sires to  get  out  of  life  at  least  all  that  there  is  in  it  for  him.  These 
seven  deadly  values,  as  we  may  call  them,  are  Communication, 
Speed,  Entertainment,  Health,  Psychology,  Sex,  and  Youth. 
Mankind  may  ever  have  desired  such  benefits  as  these,  but  the 
proportion  in  which  they  are  esteemed  today  makes  them  new 
values. 

COMMUNICATION 

The  desire  for  immediate  Communication  with  distant  points 
and  the  consequent  annihilation  of  space  arose  in  connection  with 
steam  and  electricity.  Another  age  might  have  hesitated  to  break 
down  the  apparently  natural  barriers  of  space  and  time  lest  it  in- 
cur the  wrath  of  the  gods,  but  the  American  of  the  last  one  hun- 
dred years  has  rejoiced  in  the  machinery  that  grinds  more  rapidly 


THE  VALUES  OF  CIVILIZATION 

than  the  mills  of  the  gods.  These  space-time  destroyers  are  easily 
recognized  in  the  locomotive,  the  steamboat,  automobile,  and 
airplane.  These  provide  the  advantage  of  rapid  transportation 
of  the  individual  himself,  his  body.  Communication  of  a  differ- 
ent sort  appears  in  the  telegraph,  telephone,  radio,  and  television, 
whereby  one's  mind  is  placed  in  immediate  communication  with 
that  of  another  at  some  distant  point.  In  such  victories  over  the 
old  space-time  barrier  we  find  an  intrinsic  value. 

When  we  seek  to  evaluate  the  value  of  communication,  we 
must  bear  in  mind  that  it  concerns  the  form  of  an  operation,  not 
its  content.  It  is  a  question  of  the  physical  manner  of  the  com- 
munication, not  the  spiritual  matter.  In  a  poetic  manner,  we  may 
speak  of  the  Revolutionary  fathers  as  having  "fired  the  shot 
heard  round  the  world,"  but  it  was  a  long  time  before  report  of 
American  freedom  was  heard  in  the  Old  World.  Compared  with 
the  broadcast  of  an  advertisement  spoken  or  sung  or-crooned  from 
a  radio  station  the  time  involved  seems  distressingly  long.  Yet 
nothing  worth  while  is  taken  from  Lincoln's  Gettysburg  Address 
because  it  went  forth  with  only  the  speed  of  sound  to  be  heard 
by  a  few  hundreds;  nothing  is  added  to  a  commonplace  address 
because  it  proceeds  with  the  speed  of  light  to  as  many  millions. 
And  yet  we  are  bound  to  find  a  value,  if  only  a  potential  one, 
in  the  facilities  of  instantaneous  communication. 

SPEED 

In  close  connection  with  the  value  of  communication  is  that 
of  Speed.  There  is  a  saying  that  he  that  believeth  shall  make  no 
haste,  but  for  all  that  we  have  faith  in  rapid  movement.  In  most 
cases,  such  rapid  transportation  by  means  of  steam  engine  or 
motor  is  based  upon  the  principle  of  necessity,  since  the  exi- 
gencies of  modern  life  require  one  to  cover  greater  reaches  of 
space  in  correspondingly  short  stretches  of  time.  Yet  in  other 
instances  by  no  means  exceptional,  the  idea  in  mind  appears  to 
be  movement  for  its  own  sake,  as  in  motoring,  with  the  added 
zest  of  speeding.  We  crave  the  kinaesthetic  sensation  that  comes 
from  swift  transportation  through  space  especially  when  ftjhe 
means  of  locomotion  are  under  our  own  control,  and  just 


ENTERTAINMENT 

do  we  observe  and  recount  to  others  the  time  we  made  on  such 
and  such  a  trip.  The  nation  may  be  no  better  off  for  those  who  in 
their  swift  cars  have  taken  the  place  of  the  forefathers  who  jour- 
neyed in  the  covered  wagon,  yet  we  cannot  disabuse  our  minds  of 
the  idea  that  the  increase  in  speed  is  a  gain  in  capability  and 
character. 

The  value  of  speed  contributed  to  life  by  means  of  the  motor 
means  increase  in  the  quantity  of  life  without  improvement  in  its 
quality.  At  the  end  of  a  day's  motor  trip  in  which  one's  senses 
have  recorded  thousands  of  impressions  where  formerly  these 
were  merely  in  the  hundreds,  one  is  no  wiser  than  at  the  start  of 
the  journey.  Or  is  there  any  appreciable  difference  between  those 
who  have  their  cars  and  drive  them  and  the  less  restless  persons 
whose  motor  experiences  consist  of  no  more  than  an  occasional 
ride  in  bus  or  taxicab  ?  But  since  motoring  is  so  universal  and  has 
come  to  the  point  where  we  average  about  a  car  to  a  family,  the 
time  is  coming  when  rapid  transportation  will  be  so  taken  for 
granted  that  its  value  will  not  be  appreciated.  There  is  still  the 
air,  but  even  there  it  is  possible  that  before  the  end  of  the  century 
aeronautics,  which  is  now  so  exceptional,  will  become  the  rule 
and  the  airplane  will  repeat  the  history  of  the  automobile. 

ENTERTAINMENT 

The  value  of  Entertainment  is  another  desideratum  which  has 
been  both  created  and  satisfied  by  the  machine.  This  might  be 
called  our  "  show  value."  The  stage  is  by  no  means  new,  since  it 
dates  back  as  far  as  the  theater  of  Dionysus  in  the  middle  or 
perhaps  earlier  period  of  Greek  life  and  has  since  existed  the 
world  over.  But  mechanical  entertainment  peculiar  to  the  movie- 
play  and  also  the  radio-play,  which  is  coming  into  existence,  is 
something  new.  The  remarkable  feature  of  the  moving  picture 
show  is  not  that  it  exists  or  that  it  commands  attention  now  and 
then  after  the  manner  of  the  theater,  but  that  it  is  accepted  as  an 
essential  of  everyday  life  in  America.  As  we  shall  see  when  we 
come  to  the  details  of  The  Present  Qufloo\,  the  statistics  of  at- 
tendance at  the  movies  is  such  as  to  sfhow  that,  on  the  average, 
every  member  of  the  population  sees  a  picture  every  week.  Wlle-B? 

S.T.— 35 


THE  VALUES  OF  CIVILIZATION 

the  number  of  infants,  of  the  very  aged,  the  blind,  and  those  who 
are  not  impressed  by  the  technique  of  the  movie  stage  is  con- 
sidered, it  will  appear  that  the  "  movie  population  "  is  unusually 
devoted  to  the  art  and  science  of  the  mechanized  drama  and 
assiduous  in  attendance. 

For  the  most  part,  it  may  be  assumed  that  the  moving  picture 
show,  except  where  it  depicts  crime  and  sensuality,  is  a  negligible 
factor  in  American  life.  It  might  be  regarded  as  having  a  broad- 
ening effect  upon  and  an  educational  influence  over  the  mind,  but 
the  flying  images  of  instantaneous  photographs  even  when  they 
are  synchronized  with  some  sort  of  spoken  text  are  not  likely  to 
have  a  Shakespearean  effect  upon  the  mind  of  the  habitual  movie 
audience.  On  the  other  hand,  it  might  be  suggested  that  the 
movies  are  of  ill  effect  mentally  in  the  way  that  they  take  one's 
mind  away  from  the  realities  of  life  and  create  the  impression 
that,  after  all,  all  the  world's  a  film.  At  best,  it  may  be  said  that 
the  moving  picture,  whether  it  has  a  value  or  not,  is  such  a  factor 
in  contemporary  life  as  to  express  a  "  frivolity  rendered  august 
by  its  persistence,"  to  borrow  an  expression  from  Anatole  France. 

HEALTH 

The  present  age  is  interested  in  the  Health  of  mind  and  body, 
so  that  we  find  a  sort  of  hygienic  value  asserting  itself  among 
these  more  spectacular  desiderata.  The  range  of  this  value  is 
such  as  to  include  more  than  the  organic  welfare  of  the  body;  the 
hygienic  value  includes  concern  for  the  nerves,  glands,  teeth,  the 
skin,  and  the  like.  The  importance  of  health  in  the  American 
mind  is  indicated  in  striking  manner  by  the  Rockefeller  Institute 
for  Mediccd  Research,  founded  in  1901,  and  the  Rockefeller 
Foundation,  1913,  with  its  International  Health  Division.  The 
millions  or  hundreds  of  millions  set  aside  for  this  work  suggest 
the  price  that  is  set  upon  this  value. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  hygienic  value  is  a  genuine  one, 
yet  it  can  have  the  ill  effect  of  making  the  average  person  over- 
conscious  of  his  body  and  mind  so  that,  instead  of  accepting  hints 
from  nature  or  warnings  from  the  family  physician,  he  may  be 
inclined  to  attribute  to  himself  some  of  the  ills  that  are  referred 


PSYCHOLOGY  53! 

to  in  the  "  health  column  "  of  the  daily  paper.  This  is  most  likely 
to  be  the  case  when,  in  the  guise  o£  psychology,  the  eccentricities, 
dreams,  and  occasional  black  thoughts  of  the  human  mind  are 
made  to  appear  unusually  serious  and  to  suggest  that  one  is 
suffering  from  the  mental  ills  on  which  the  enthusiastic  psycholo- 
gist is  expatiating.  The  health  value,  especially  when  it  concerns 
our  mental  health,  may  be  understood  as  a  consideration  naturally 
arising  in  a  civilization  whose  excitement  and  speed  stimulate 
the  nerves  to  the  point  of  irritation.  If  there  were  not  the  con- 
stant tendency  to  disorder  in  mind  and  body,  there  would  not 
be  such  an  effort  put  forth  toward  preventive  medicine.  Fortu- 
nately for  the  American  population,  the  methods  being  adopted 
for  the  prevention  and  cure  of  disease  have  to  do  more  with  diet, 
air,  exercise,  rest,  and  a  common-sense  plan  of  living  than  with 
the  patent  medication  which  sprang  up  and  flourished  all  too 
well  in  the  XlXth  century.  The  ideal  of  a  sound  mind  in  a 
sound  body  is  being  pursued  more  and  more  with  regard  for  the 
principles  of  rational  living,  less  and  less  with  blind  faith  in 
the  magic  of  medicine. 

PSYCHOLOGY 

Psychology  is  a  popular  value  which  has  arisen  in  the  XXth 
century.  When  this  science,  if  it  was  a  science,  was  studied  in  the 
form  of  "  mental  philosophy,"  the  principles  involved  in  it  were 
too  metaphysical  and  the  interests  which  it  aroused  were  too 
theological  to  make  any  popular  appeal  and  constitute  a  value. 
In  like  manner,  although  to  a  less  degree,  when  the  advance  of 
such  study  to  the  introspective  study  of  consciousness  was  still 
along  the  academic  line,  the  populace  had  no  access  to  the  psycho- 
logical laboratory  and  hence  people  lived  their  lives  and  did  their 
work  in  rather  charming  innocence  of  psychophysics.  The  popu- 
lar mind  made  some  general  reference  to  the  brain  and  spoke  of 
the  successful  person  as  one  who  was  "  brainy,"  but  did  not  have 
any  desire  or  ability  to  look  into  these  important  matters.  But 
in  time  the  science  of  psychology  became  something  other  than 
the  study  of  mind  or  mind-body.  It  began  to  refer  to  glands, 
complexes,  reactions,  psychoses,  and  the  like  and  the  very  in- 


532  THE  VALUES  OF  CIVILIZATION 

definiteness  of  these  terms,  along  with  the  constant  appeal  to  the 
sex-factor  in  life,  made  psychology  a  popular  value  or  something 
worth  thinking  about.  An  array  of  popular  psychologies  ap- 
peared duly  flanked  by  magazine  and  newspaper  articles.  At 
least  one  newspaper  syndicate  put  forth  a  feature  conducted  by 
an  emeritus  professor  of  psychology,  who  sought  to  enlighten 
the  public  on  the  subject  of  mind  normal  and  abnormal.  At  the 
present  time,  psychology  is  not  as  appealing  as  astrology,  but 
it  has  become  such  a  popular  desideratum  as  to  afford  a  distinct 
value. 

Attention  was  called  to  psychology  by  the  various  efficiency 
methods  and  intelligence  tests  that  appeared  with  the  new  cen- 
tury, and  psychological  interest  was  enhanced  by  the  special  in- 
telligence tests  of  the  army.  Unfortunately  this  wholesale  psy- 
chology had  the  effect  of  showing  that  the  male  and  militant 
portion  of  the  population  was  better  fitted  to  fight  than  to 
comprehend  the  purpose  of  the  conflict,  but  the  general  idea  of  a 
mental  test  on  paper  seized  the  popular  imagination,  and  thus 
there  arose  a  variety  of  impromptu  tests  in  the  form  of  cross- 
word puzzles,  "Do  you  know  that's?"  and  the  like.  This 
press  psychology  had  the  effect  of  enhancing  the  psychological 
value  and  tended  also  to  popularize  the  clinical  term  "  moron," 
often  if  not  habitually  employed  by  those  who,  under  examina- 
tion, would  have  been  unable  to  state  the  psychological  signifi- 
cance of  the  opprobrious  epithet.  In  addition  to  such  psychology 
of  cognition,  there  has  been  an  unusual  interest  in  the  mind 
viewed  from  the  emotional  and  elemental  point  of  view. 

This  has  associated  itself  with  the  vague  use  of  the  terms 
ce  glands  "  and  "  complexes."  The  glands,  both  ductless  and  other- 
wise, had  been  in  operation  from  time  immemorial,  cases  of 
goiter  were  by  no  means  new,  but  the  psychological  effect  of  the 
ductless  glands  and  their  influence  upon  personality  soon  became 
popular.  The  gland  became  a  kind  of  fad  and  the  inimitable 
"  Hermione  "  of  Don  Marquis,  having  first  referred  to  them  as 
though  they  were  all  the  rage,  added  that,  in  her  opinion,  they 
would  soon  become  outmoded  like  the  leather  coats  worn  by 
autoists.  The  complexes  have  made  still  greater  appeal  —  that  of 
sex,  This  function,  like  the  glandular  one,  is  by  no  means  new. 


SEX  533 

As  far  back  as  the  days  of  Sophocles,  from  whom  Freud  adapted 
the  terms  "Oedipus  Complex"  and  "Electra  Complex,"  the 
morbid  range  of  dreams  had  been  divined. 

SEX 

The  idea  of  Sex,  not  the  only  but  still  the  predominant  one 
in  psychoanalysis,  has  been  raised  from  the  biological  to  the  psy- 
chological level  and  made  a  conscious  value  in  the  life  of  the 
present  age.  The  antiquity  of  sex  needs  no  comment;  the  obvious 
importance  of  it  in  both  animal  and  plant  may  suggest,  however, 
that  sex  is  hardly  a  discovery  of  the  XXth  century,  as  though  it 
were  an  element  rare  as  radium.  No,  it  is  merely  the  historical 
fact  that  people  at  large  are  thinking  and  talking  and  writing 
about  the  obvious  and  making  a  special  value  out  of  a  general 
function;  this  is  what  calls  for  comment.  The  advantages  of  this 
tendency,  or  the  value  of  the  sex-value,  may  be  expressed  under 
the  general  head  of  popular  enlightenment,  although  in  our  age 
this  assumes  the  superficial  form  of  sophistication.  Thus  it  can 
easily  be  demonstrated  that  a  certain  amount  of  elemental  in- 
formation coming  in  a  sober,  semi-scientific  way  is  better  than  a 
vague  impression  often  associated  with  vulgarity*  In  like  manner, 
the  sex-value  may  be  upheld  on  hygienic  grounds.  Furthermore, 
it  might  be  pointed  out  that  the  "  short  and  ugly  word  "  is  capable 
of  being  lengthened  and  perhaps  adorned  by  the  psychological 
fact  that  sex  plays  an  aesthetic  as  well  as  an  erotic  part,  having 
at  least  something  to  do  with  both  the  appreciation  and  produc- 
tion of  the  beautiful  in  art. 

However,  it  requires  but  a  moment's  reflection  to  convince  one 
that  this  single  function  of  the  organism  is  not  supposed  to  assume 
responsibility  for  every  form  of  human  thinking  and  action,  still 
less  for  all  manner  of  civilized  institutions.  The  economic,  in- 
dustrial, political,  religious,  and  even  the  social  institutions  in 
general  are  in  no  special  debt  to  the  peculiar  economy  of  all  faunal 
and  floral  existence.  In  the  life  of  the  individual,  the  disadvantage 
of  the  sex-value  appears  in  the  way  that  it  tends  to  discount  the 
delightful  experience  and  romantic  theme  of  love.  The  older 
generation  managed  to  live,  love,  and  bring  the  younger,  smarter 


534  THE  VALUES  OF  CIVILIZATION 

generation  into  existence  without  the  self-conscious  and  sex- 
conscious  sentiments  so  much  in  evidence  in  the  popular  mind. 
The  Ignorance  of  sex  was  the  bliss  of  love,  but  the  present  genera- 
tion seems  to  be  willing  to  forego  romance  for  the  sake  of  sophis- 
tication. If  the  primordial  principle  seems  like  such  a  new  idea 
that  one  is  supposed  to  believe  that  sex  has  just  been  discovered, 
it  might  be  borne  in  mind  that  Eros  was*  both  the  oldest  and  the 
youngest  of  the  gods,  so  that  the  erotic  tendency  may  be  viewed 
as  the  most  primitive  and  elemental  or  as  the  most  advanced  and 
psychological.  There  are  many  living  today  who  can  recall  the 
time  when  there  was  no  such  word  as  sex  in  the  bright  lexicon 
of  youth,  just  as  there  are  some  of  the  present  generation  who 
doubtless  will  live  long  enough  to  observe  the  passing  of  the  same 
word  from  common  speech. 

YOUTH 

The  seventh  of  the  deadly  values  that  may  be  cited  is  that  of 
Youth.  At  a  time  in  the  history  of  civilization  when  the  in- 
habitants of  the  West  might  well  have  thought  of  oriental  old 
age  and  death,  so  deadly  was  the  effect  of  the  World  War,  their 
aspirations  took  a  decided  turn  in  the  direction  of  youthfulness. 
The  amazement  of  and  deference  to  youth  was  by  no  means  a 
new  idea  when  it  was  reproduced  in  the  present  century.  A  sort 
of  Ponce  de  Leonisrn  rose  soon  after  the  discovery  of  America; 
history  was  familiar  with  the  expression  jcunessc  dortc,  and  older 
generations  had  accustomed  themselves  to  saying,  "  Youth  must 
be  served."  But  the  contemporary  youth-value  assumed  the  novel 
form  of  youthfulness  triumphant  in  the  trim  figure  of  the 
"Flapper."  She  was  apparently  the  product  of  the  economic 
regime  in  connection  with  which  the  great  god  Mammon  found 
it  expedient  to  employ  whole  regiments  of  young  girls  who  could 
do  the  work  of  men  without  unduly  burdening  the  payroll. 
These  daughters  of  Dives  promptly  met  the  situation  by  organ- 
izing themselves,  as  it  were,  into  a  corps  of  sweetly  militant 
maids  who  changed  the  symbol  of  the  young  woman  from  that 
of  the  clinging  vine  to  the  proud  sapling.  They  were  character- 
ized by  independent  spirits  but  recognized  by  their  short  hair  and 


YOUTH  535 

short  skirts  —  fashions  demanded  by  the  kind  of  life  they  had 
begun  to  live. 

Not  to  be  outdone  by  these  authentic  examples  of  youthfulness, 
no  longer  sweet  but  strenuous  sixteen,  their  mothers  imitated 
them.  As  the  child  of  the  older  generation  found  it  interesting 
at  times  to  don  the  mother's  garments,  the  mothers  of  the  pres- 
ent generation  have  reversed  this  process.  The  result  is  that  the 
women  of  this  generation,  young  and  old,  give  or  attempt  to  give 
the  impression  of  youthfulness.  Bobbed  hair  and  docked  skirt 
for  both  mother  and  daughter  are  or  have  been  symptoms  of 
this.  The  feminine  symbol  for  the  genuinely  young  is  Joan  of 
Arc;  for  the  apparently  young,  that  same  Cleopatra  whom  age 
could  not  wither  and  whose  infinite  variety  custom  could  not 
stale.  Other  indications  of  the  youth-value  feminine  are  findable 
in  what  might  be  called  major  cosmetics,  or  face-lifting,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  rejuvenation  process  instituted  by  Dr.  Steinach. 
A  literary  example  of  this  phase  of  new  womanhood  was  given  by 
Gertrude  Atherton  in  her  novel  en  tided  Blacf^  Oxen. 

Although  the  youth-value  of  the  XXth  century  will  be  associ- 
ated with  the  life  of  woman,  man  has  not  been  indifferent  to  the 
idea  of  a  Fountain  of  Youth.  The  men  of  the  XXth  century  have 
gone  at  the  problem  in  a  tonsorial,  sartorial  manner  just  as  the 
women  made  use  of  coiffure  and  costume  in  the  outer  quest  of 
youthfulness.  Thus  the  men  of  the  age  are  usually  smooth- 
shaven  and  to  that  extent  boyish  in  appearance,  comfortably  and 
perhaps  jauntily  attired.  The  short  skirt  has  been  matched  by 
the  knickerbockers  of  golf  players  and  non-participants  in  the 
sport,  and  such  athletic  attire  has  been  quite  generally  adopted 
even  when  the  wearers  of  it  are  often  quite  wanting  in  the  ac- 
companying athletic  figure.  In  more  serious  ways  men  have 
matched  Steinach  with  VornoflE;  that  is,  they  also  have  expressed 
the  hope  of  actual  rejuvenation.  But  for  the  most  part  men  have 
taken  the  youth-value  to  mean  the  prolongation  of  their  existence 
on  earth  and  thus  have  gone  in  for  life-extension.  Their  literary 
guide  is  none  other  than  that  forever-young  senior,  Bernard 
Shaw,  who,  in  his  Bacf^  to  Methuselah f  has  tried  to  create  the 
illusion  that  the  alloted  span  of  life  can  be  stretched,  if  only  in 
imagination. 


536  THE  VALUES  OF  CIVILIZATION 

NEW  VALUES  NEEDED 

The  time  is  coming  when  these  seven  deadly  values  will  have 
to  give  place  to  new  ones  and  it  has  been  suggested  that  a  hand- 
some prize  should  be  offered  to  the  genius  who  will  invent  a  new 
value  for  the  human  race.  If  evolution  proceeds  by  emergence, 
it  is  possible  that  such  a  novel  value  will  appear  in  the  form  of  a 
new  purpose  in  life,  a  more  remote  goal  than  is  now  in  sight. 


CHAPTER  XXI 
TYPES  OF  NATIONAL  CULTURE 


CULTURE  PERSONAL  AND  NATIONAL 

IN  CONTRAST  WITH  SCIENCE,  WHICH  IS  IMPERSONAL  AND  SOCIAL, 
culture  is  individual  and  national.  This  is  because  it  relates 
to  man  rather  than  nature  and  moves  along  in  history  in- 
stead of  taking  its  place  in  the  world.  Culture  is  something 
creative  and  only  remotely  related  to  the  intellect's  faculty  of 
comprehension.  It  deals  with  the  sciences,  but  with  the  arts 
also,  and  consists  of  intellectual  life  rather  than  any  process  of 
reasoning.  There  can  be  no  national  culture  without  the  culture 
of  individuals  who  make  up  the  political  group  and  there  can 
hardly  be  intellectual  culture  without  the  aesthetic  background 
that  a  nation  affords.  We  are  bound  to  associate  Homer  with 
Greece,  Cicero  with  Rome,  Leonardo  da  Vinci  with  Italy;  Goethe 
is  ever  German,  Rousseau  French,  and  Emerson  American.  In 
a  certain  sense,  culture  is  a  European  ideal  and  may  be  said  to 
consist  of  the  Europeanization  of  the  intellect;  but  none  the 
less  is  it  so  national  that  the  cultured  individual  can  hardly  de- 
tach himself  from  his  group  or  uproot  himself  from  his  native 
soil.  The  very  fact  of  language,  which  the  man  of  culture  uses 
in  expressing  himself,  is  testimony  to  his  racial  and  political 
connection. 

As  a  result  of  the  patriotico-personal  character  of  culture,  sepa- 
rate nations  have  expressed  massive  forms  of  intellectual  life, 
which  have  then  been  exemplified  by  private  individuals  who 
have  both  borrowed  from  and  contributed  to  the  national  culture- 
spirit*  Here  and  there  an  individual  may  be  a  branch  broken 
off  and  grafted  upon  the  olive  to  partake  of  the  root  and  fatness 
of  the  tree.  This  we  observe  with  Heine  in  France,  Stendhal- 
Beyle  in  Italy,  Henry  James  and  Joseph  Conrad  in  England;  but 
such  transplantings  seldom  result  in  genuine  culture  or  true 
art  with  the  mind  that  is  to  the  manner  born.  The  sincere  artist 
may  transcend  the  level  o£  his  national  existence,  as  did  Goethe, 

537 


TYPES  OF  NATIONAL  CULTURE 

exceed  the  limits  of  his  locality  as  in  the  case  of  Emerson,  or  like 
Ibsen  wander  from  his  native  land;  but  Goethe  was  forever 
German,  Emerson  American,  and  Ibsen  Norwegian.  Native 
tongues  take  care  that  native  sons  shall  speak  their  proper  lan- 
guage and  testify  to  the  nationalism  of  their  culture.  How  may 
these  national  cultures  be  identified? 

GREEK  CULTURE  OF  BEAUTY 

Already,  as  a  matter  of  history,  we  have  spoken  of  Greek 
culture  in  its  connection  with  our  civilization.  In  so  doing,  we 
sought  to  pursue  historical  method  and  thus  were  forced  to  refer 
to  the  Greeks  in  a  realistic  way,  perhaps  as  they  may  have  thought 
of  themselves,  all  unmindful  of  the  sublime  fact  that  they  were  to 
become  models  of  Classicism.  Having  paid  our  tribute  to  prag- 
matic history,  it  is  now  our  privilege  to  indulge  the  idealistic 
interpretation  which  the  study  of  Greek  life  has  made  tradi- 
tional. We  place  their  intellectuals,  the  \doi  \agathoi,  at  the 
head  of  the  column,  to  be  followed  in  turn  by  artists  who  made 
other  nations  famous  for  the  Greek  spirit  of  culture.  Greece 
was  responsible  for  its  national  culture,  for  there  was  nothing 
overpowering  in  the  geographical  situation  in  which  it  found 
itself.  There  were  no  towering  mountain  ranges  or  majestic 
rivers,  no  vast  reaches  of  either  land  or  sea,  but  only  hill-like 
elevations  and  slender  streams,  while  the  coast  line  on  the  Medi- 
terranean was  well  fortified  with  many  a  charming  isle.  The 
absence  of  natural  grandeur  prevented  the  Greek  intellect  from 
being  embarrassed  by  the  thought  of  its  natural  limitations, 
while  the  character  of  the  land  kept  them  from  becoming  too 
gregarious.  They  beheld  nature  in  miniature  and  developed 
their  art  in  the  spirit  of  proportion  rather  than  size.  They 
viewed  human  life  socially,  entered  by  free  choice  into  their 
own  political  relations,  and  developed  the  polis  in  the  tiny  form 
of  the  city-state. 

The  psychology  of  the  Greek  mind  was  that  of  perfect  hu- 
manism; it  reveals  its  subjects  as  men  who  sought  to  rationalize 
all  impressions,  emotions,  and  impulses.  We  have  recognized 
this  already  when  in  speaking  of  Greek  culture  we  referred  to 


THE  GREEK  LANGUAGE 

their  ideals  of  self-knowledge  and  restraint,  or  nothing  in  excess. 
But  above  all  they  were  to  exhibit  what  Aristotle  came  to  call'  the 
"  energy  of  contemplation  "  or  activity  of  an  intellect  that  be- 
held interesting  problems  everywhere.  It  began  to  reveal  itself 
in  extravagant  dreams  about  the  universe,  man,  and  the  course 
of  things  celestial.  In  time  it  appeared  again,  when  metaphys- 
ics had  taken  the  place  of  myth  in  naive  speculations  about  the 
nature  of  things,  whether  of  water  or  air,  whether  one  thing  at 
rest  or  many  things  in  motion.  None  the  less  did  this  intel- 
lectual avidity  lead  the  Greeks  to  lay  hold  of  the  intimate  nature 
of  particular  things,  as  when  Archimedes  sought  the  true  weight 
of  gold  and  Pythagoras  considered  the  relation  of  the  hypotenuse 
to  the  other  two  sides  of  the  triangle.  These  and  many  other 
things  noted  in  the  chapter  on  Greek  culture  indicate  the  cog- 
nitive character  of  Greek  psychology. 

The  reflective  culture  that  the  Greeks  superimposed  upon  their 
discoveries  and  inventions  assumed  the  form  of  official  philosophy> 
or  idealism.  The  Greeks  were  drawn  to  this  type  of  speculation 
by  their  desire  to  have  a  standardized  way  of  thinking  in  place  of 
the  sophistical  opinions  of  Protagoras.  It  was  their  desire  to  dis- 
cover what  all  men  must  think,  not  what  one  man  may  think. 
Then,  they  were  drawn  to  the  idealism  of  forms  as  a  way  of  escape 
from  the  flux  of  particular  things  that  the  heedless  philosophy  of 
Heraclitus  had  proposed.  Hence  they  welcomed  the  teaching 
of  Socrates,  who  established  knowledge  on  the  basis  of  definitions 
in  much  the  same  manner  that  Pheidias  described  the  human 
body  in  a  typical  and  anatomical  way.  These  Socratic  ideas  as- 
sumed the  form, of  a  set  framework  in  the  absolute  idealism  of 
Plato,  which  provided  the  intellect  with  knowable  objects  distinct 
from  the  imperfect  and  changing  objects  of  sense.  Just  as  much 
was  there  among  these  Greeks  the  desire  to  discover  the  channels 
of  life  and  paths  of  action,  so  that  to  their  metaphysics  they  added 
a  system  of  morality  based  upon  the  contemplation  of  the  Good. 

THE  GREEK  LANGUAGE 

The  immediate  expression  of  this  intellectualism  came  to  the 
Greeks  as  a  gift  in  the  form  of  language,  for  in  the  beginning  was 


540  TYPES  OF  NATIONAL  CULTURE 

the  word.  The  logos  was  the  gift  of  the  gods.  It  meant 
more  than  "  word  ";  it  included  the  idea  the  word  expressed,  if 
not  the  thing  behind  the  idea.  Their  language  itself  was  euphoni- 
ous and  in  comparison  with  Latin  came  forth  with  fullness  in 
sentences  complete  in  meaning  and  remarkable  for  smoothness 
of  sequence.  Greek  rejoices  in  a  wealth  of  forms  indicative  of  a 
mind  whose  perceptions  are  acute  and  whose  thought  has  con- 
sidered its  subject  with  care.  The  noun  with  its  definite  article 
is  declined  with  less  modification  than  the  Latin  substantive, 
but  its  four  cases  are  adequate.  The  verb  exhibits  rich  con- 
jugations capable  of  expressing  all  possible  variety  of  relations, 
which  themselves  are  made  more  definite  by  the  use  of  signifi- 
cant prepositions,  while  the  various  shades  of  meaning  are  made 
apparent  by  a  profusion  of  particles.  With  the  logos  as  his 
guide,  the  Greek  could  say  what  he  wished  in  the  way  he 
wished  it  understood,  since  his  flexible  language  made  his  thought 
articulate. 

Classic  consciousness  and  its  mode  of  self-expression  engen- 
dered style  in  art,  the  Apollonian  form  of  culture;  this  style 
consisted  in  loyalty  to  the  media  in  which  the  artist  worked. 
Greek  architecture  seems  to  stride  majestically  from  the  simple 
Doric  to  the  symmetrical  Ionic,  to  the  ornate  Corinthian.  Greek 
sculpture  advanced  from  the  rnassiveness  of  Myron  to  the  per- 
fect formalism  of  Pheidias  and  thence  to  the  beauty  of  Praxiteles. 
In  keeping  with  this  implicit  plan  or  pattern,  the  Grecian  drama 
began  by  unfolding  the  sturdy  stanzas  of  Aeschylus,  proceeded 
to  the  Classicism  of  Sophocles,  and  culminated  in  the  more  con- 
scious and  human  art  of  Euripides.  The  art  of  the  Greeks  seems 
to  have  advanced  according  to  a  preconceived  plan  and  to  have 
filled  in  a  framework  devised  in  advance.  It  was  in  this  spirit 
that  Plato  referred  to  ideas  as  preexistent  patterns  which  the 
mortal  mind  of  man  recalled  as  its  experiences  in  a  previous  state 
of  existence. 


CLASSICISM 

The  Greek  spirit  reasserted  itself  directly  in  the  Italian  Re- 
naissance, when  Apollo  resumed  his  creative  work.    The  Greek 


CLASSICISM  54I 

idea  appeared  in  France  and  Germany  where  it  was  first  a 
pattern  for  imitation  and  then  a  principle  for  analysis.  The 
classic  sense  of  form  reveals  itself  in  the  development  of  French 
poetry  from  Malherbe  onward;  tightly  unified  drama  appeared  on 
the  stage  of  Corneille.  Moreover,  the  clarity  of  French  style  and 
the  constant  reference  to  the  intellect  may  be  taken  as  further 
examples  of  Grecian  influence.  In  the  German  mind,  the  Clas- 
sic became  a  concept  to  be  submitted  to  reflection  rather  than 
a  model  to  be  followed  by  creative  art,  so  that  it  was  the  aestheti- 
cal  more  than  the  artistic  that  the  Germans  acquired  from  the 
Greeks. 

Among  the  Germans  we  observe  this  in  the  archaeologist 
Winckelmann,  who  likened  classic  beauty  to  rare  wine  drunk 
from  a  simple,  transparent  goblet  or  a  spirit  drawn  from  the 
material  order  by  fire.  "  Beauty,"  he  went  on  to  say  in  dilating 
upon  the  Greek  ideal  of  art,  "  is  like  the  purest  water,  which  is 
more  highly  prized  the  less  taste  it  has  because  it  is  free  from 
foreign  elements."1  Lessing,  who  felt  that  the  neo-Classicism 
of  the  French  was  not  authentic,  exhibited  what  he  esteemed  the 
Greek  ideal  by  drawing  sharp  lines  of  distinction  between  poetic 
and  plastic  art  and  with  the  rigor  of  the  metaphysician  relegated 
one  to  the  perception  of  time,  the  other  to  the  domain  of  space. 
Schiller  was  more  sunny  in  his  method.  He  distinguished  be- 
tween ancient  and  modern  poetry  when  he  spoke  of  the  former 
as  "  naive,"  the  latter  as  "  sentimental,"  thereby  setting  the  Greek 
ideal  in  a  relief  it  had  never  enjoyed  before.  For  the  most  part, 
the  popular  effect  of  classic  culture  has  shown  itself  in  the  Greek 
motif  in  conventional  architecture  and  the  pursuit  of  Greek 
and  Latin  in  the  schools. 

The  Greek  conception  of  culture,  as  this  is  now  fixed  in  our 
minds,  may  seem  too  good  to  be  true,  hence  there  are  those  who 
feel  that  Grecian  idealism  and  aestheticism  are  somewhat  mythi- 
cal. Surely  we  cannot  think  of  original  Greeks  as  devoting  all 
their  precious  energies  to  the  True  and  Good  and  Beautiful  any 
more  than  we  can  imagine  the  ancient  Hebrews  so  surrendered 
to  righteousness  that  the  Ten  Tribes  were  found  instantly  serving 
God  day  and  night.  In  the  case  of  Grecian  idealism  as  it  was 

*  Werfy,  Lib.  4,  Cap.  2,  §  23. 


542  TYPES  OF  NATIONAL  CULTURE 

entertained  by  the  Greeks  themselves,  it  must  be  observed  that 
Apollo,  god  of  beauty  and  enlightenment,  was  not  the  only  deity, 
for  there  was  Dionysus,  god  of  sense  and  debauchery.  Thus 
it  was  that  Nietzsche,2  having  felt  that  the  Apollonian  had 
been  too  highly  praised,  strove  to  rehabilitate  the  Dionysian 
ideal  of  robust  culture.  His  contention  was  that  the  Greeks 
went  too  far  when,  especially  in  the  drama,  they  allowed  the 
rationalism  of  the  Apollonian  forces  to  subject  the  barbaric 
and  titanic  powers  of  the  Dionysian  cult  whereby  the  Greek 
stage  became  a  rigid  form  instead  of  a  living  body.  To  this 
philosophical  criticism  he  added  a  bit  of  propaganda  by  in- 
sisting that  it  was  the  original  mission  of  Richard  Wagner  by 
his  naturalistic  operas  of  the  Nibelungen  Ring  to  restore  the  bar- 
baric vigor  symbolized  by  the  worship  of  Dionysus.  This,  how- 
ever, was  not  to  be  done,  not  even  by  the  Germans,  who  are 
guided  by  Faust  rather  than  by  the  ancient  god. 

But  after  we  have  duly  discounted  the  traditional  idealism  of 
the  Greeks  and  made  as  much  allowance  for  the  realism  of  life, 
we  cannot  consent  to  the  idea  that  there  was  anything  like  a 
balance  between  the  ideal  and  the  real,  or  genuine  competition 
between  Apollo  and  Dionysus.  The  faunal  deity  with  his  troupe 
of  satyrs  was  looked  upon  by  the  Greeks  as  a  sort  of  interloper 
whose  mischievous  presence  was  tolerated  by  only  a  base  minor- 
ity. In  the  Bacchae 3  of  Euripides,  we  observe  Greek  hostility  to 
the  orgiastic  rites  o£  this  impromptu  god.  The  stand  taken, 
which  is  the  losing  one  in  both  history  and  drama,  is  represented 
by  the  Theban  king  Pentheus,  who  tries  to  discredit  the  new 
rites  being  introduced  into  his  little  dynasty  by  styling  them  as 
unseemly  and  as  better  suited  to  barbarians  than  to  Greeks.  It 
may  have  been  that  it  was  the  Dionysian  motif  in  Greek  life 
that  gave  the  national  culture  its  genius,  yet  without  the  ethical 
restraint  and  intellectual  guidance  of  the  Apollonian,  Greek  cul- 
ture might  have  amounted  to  nothing  but  so  much  mental  fer- 
mentation or  a  protracted  period  of  storm  and  stress.  The 
impression  left  by  the  ancient  Greeks  is  forever  the  Apollonian 
ideal  of  idea  and  form;  to  us  they  bequeathed  their  world  of 
ideas. 

3  The  Birth  of  Tragedy.  3  Bacchae,  tr.  Way,  482*483. 


ROMAN  CULTURE  OF  DIGNITY  543 

ROMAN  CULTURE  OF  DIGNITY 

Roman  culture  was  far  less  volatile  than  that  of  the  Greeks; 
it  tended  to  harden  into  the  practical  forms  of  civilization.  In- 
stead of  regarding  the  intellectual  and  aesthetical  life  of  the 
Romans  as  competing  with  Greek  culture,  it  is  wiser  to  consider 
it  as  something  complementary,  or  as  the  addition  of  the  practical 
to  the  theoretical.  The  Roman  mind  saw  this  clearly  and  thus 
indicated,  as  it  were,  a  division  of  labor  whereby  the  Greeks 
should  be  thought  of  as  perfecting  the  arts  and  sciences  while  the 
Romans  excelled  in  law  and  politics.  It  was  with  this  in  mind 
that  Virgil  referred  to  others  who  cut  out  breathing  bronzes  and 
drew  living  countenances  from  marble,  traced  out  the  plan  of  the 
heavens  and  predicted  the  rising  of  stars,  only  to  conclude  that 
Romans  were  meant  to  rule  peoples,  beat  down  the  haughty  in 
war,  and  impose  the  practice  of  peace.4  Such  was  the  imperial- 
istic standard  which  Rome  set  up  in  contrast  with  the  intellectu- 
alistic  ideal  of  Greece.  The  comparison  was  implicit  in  all  the 
Romans  did,  but  did  not  fail  to  receive  explicit  statement,  as  in 
the  above  case  of  Virgil.  In  a  similiar  spirit,  Cicero,  himself  a 
man  much  after  the  Greek  pattern,  expressed  himself  in  his  ora- 
tion on  the  impeachment  of  Verres,  the  corrupt  governor  of 
Sicily  who  had  plundered  the  Grecian  cities  of  all  their  master- 
pieces of  art.  "  I  realize  that  it  is  hard  for  you,  gentlemen  of  the 
jury,  to  understand  how  the  Greeks  feel  about  spoliations  of  this 
particular  sort.  Indeed,  in  a  manner  that  seems  strange  (to  us), 
the  Greeks  take  delight  in  those  things  that  we  despise."  5  There 
was  this  sharp  contrast  between  two  ancient  peoples;  how  are 
we  to  account  for  it? 

The  deep  cultural  contrast  between  Rome  and  Greece  is  not  to 
be  accounted  for  outwardly  on  the  basis  of  physical  causality  as 
though  there  were  a  radical  difference  in  the  geographical  set- 
tings of  the  two  lands.  Both  were  peninsulas  thrusting  their 
way  down  into  what  we  might  call  the  basin  of  civilization  and 
culture  —  the  Mediterranean  Sea.  But  the  Roman  mind,  or  will, 
accepted  its  position  in  the  physical  world  in  a  spirit  somewhat 
different  from  what  Greece  had  done,  certainly  before  Greece 

*  Aeneid,  847-853.  B  In  Vcrrcm,  II,  iv,  134. 


544  TYPES  OF  NATIONAL  CULTURE 

came  under  Macedonian  rule.  The  original  aim  of  the  Greeks 
had  been  to  enjoy  and  cultivate  something  given  in  the  joy  of  a 
beautiful  present,  in  a  mood  which  made  them  forget  the  past 
and  entertain  only  vague  presentiments  of  the  future.  With  the 
Roman  it  was  otherwise.  The  Italian  peninsula  seemed  to  point 
significantly  in  the  direction  of  Carthage  to  the  south  while  to 
the  north  it  spread  out  in  such  a  way  as  to  suggest  a  Europe  that 
might  be  conquered.  To  follow  out  these  geographical  sugges- 
tions would  be  to  review  the  well-known  topic,  the  rise  and  fall 
of  Rome;  not  so  clearly,  however,  would  it  supply  us  with  a 
psychology  of  Roman  culture. 

ROMAN  CULTURE  AND  CIVILIZATION 

Among  the  Romans,  the  tendency  to  fixate  ideas  in  the  forms 
of  civilization  was  such  that  the  idea  of  a  Roman  culture  in  a 
free  and  flowing  form  is  all  but  lost  to  view.  The  Romans  did 
not  luxuriate  in  the  intellectual  and  artistic  life  that  had  meant 
so  much  to  Grecian  enjoyment.  And  there  was  in  Roman  cul- 
ture little  of  that  aesthetic  delight  in  form  or  mental  avidity  to 
understand  that  had  made  the  Greeks  seem  like  students  more 
than  men  of  the  world.  The  Romans  did  not  lack  taste  or 
curiosity,  but  their  pursuit  of  the  Beautiful  and  True  was  not  so 
disinterested,  so  enthusiastic;  it  was  subordinated  to  the  Good  as 
they  understood  it;  the  Good  of  power  and  utility.  If  the  es- 
sence of  the  Greek  mind  had  inclined  it  to  some  sort  of  logic, 
Roman  culture  gravitated  toward  law.  Apparently  the  Roman 
mind  was  content  to  let  the  things  of  this  world  take  care  of 
themselves,  but  not  so  the  affairs  of  the  human  order,  for  there 
was  a  world  which  was  to  be  governed  by  suitable  laws  which, 
later,  were  interpreted  as  the  dictates  of  nature  in  the  form  of 
lex  naturalis. 

The  psychology  of  the  Roman  mind  appears  altogether  staid 
when  compared  with  the  spontaneity  of  Greek  intellect.  The 
Romans  had  their  own  humanism,  but  it  was  ethical  rather  than 
intellectual;  it  lacked  the  warmth,  versatility,  and  color  that  the 
Greeks  had  infused  into  human  consciousness.  The  difference 
between  Greeks  and  Romans  may  be  indicated  by  calling  one 


THE  LATIN  LANGUAGE  545 

a  people  of  intellect,  the  other  a  people  of  will.  It  might  be 
expressed  by  the  suggestion  that  the  Greeks  were  more  cultured 
than  civilized,  the  Romans  more  civilized  than  cultured.  How 
did  this  appear  in  their  respective  arts?  Greek  art  exemplifies 
beauty  and  grace,  that  of  Rome  a  feeling  for  elegance  and  dig- 
nity. The  Greek  was  artistic  where  the  Roman  was  more  arti- 
ficial, and  between  the  two  artistic  efforts  there  is  the  difference 
between  creating  and  making.  The  Greeks  pursued  art  for  its 
own  sake  and  ended  by  laying  down,  as  they  did  with  Aristotle, 
the  laws  of  aesthetics.  The  Romans  began  with  the  rule  and 
sought  to  exemplify  it. 

THE  LATIN  LANGUAGE 

The  mental  difference  between  these  two  model  nations  of 
antiquity  was  bound  to  appear  in  the  languages  they  used  to  ex- 
press their  characteristic  spirits.  Attention  has  already  been 
called  to  the  flexibility  and  richness  of  the  Greek  language;  it 
remains  only  to  observe  the  opposite  qualities  of  laconic  Latin. 
Greek  in  the  hands  of  those  who  used  it  was  as  wax  to  be  molded 
according  to  the  ideas  and  feelings  of  the  mind;  Latin  was  a 
bronze  to  be  beaten  into  acceptable,  permanent  form.  The  lan- 
guage that  the  Romans  employed  to  express  their  prevailing  mood 
rejoiced  in  none  of  the  fluency  which  the  voluble  Greeks  de- 
manded of  their  speech;  it  exhibits  a  discontinuity  in  which  much 
must  be  made  of  the  independent  word  and  a  taciturnity  in- 
escapable in  the  well-known  veni,  vidi,  vici.  A  large  portion  of 
the  utterance  is  thus  left  to  the  imagination  of  hearer  or  reader. 
The  noun  lacks  the  article  which,  in  the  case  of  Greek,  is  so 
impressive  that  the  omission  of  it  is  of  special  significance.  There 
Is  no  such  copious  use  of  particles  or  even  of  prepositions,  for 
the  main  parts  of  speech  are  supposed  to  bear  their  own  burden 
of  argument.  The  Latin  verb  is  there  to  express  relations,  but  not 
with  the  versatility  of  the  Greek  paradigm. 

When  contrasted  psychologically,  Greek  might  be  styled  a  sub- 
jective language  in  the  sense  of  verbal  expression  going  forth 
from  a  mind  desirous  of  expressing  itself  fully,  while  Latin 
subordinates  the  mood  of  the  speaker  to  the  object  he  is  COJGH 

S.T.— 36 


546  TYPES  OF  NATIONAL  CULTURE 

sidering  as  something  apart  from  himself.  Yet  in  spite  of  this 
apparent  lack  of  human  warmth  in  the  Latin  language,  it  has 
been  able  to  permeate  modern  tongues  to  such  a  degree  that 
today  we  use  one  dares  hardly  say  how  many  more  Latinized 
than  Hellenized  modes  of  speech.  Long  ago  Latin  gained  a 
foothold  in  the  vernacular  of  law  and  politics;  in  modern  times 
Greek  forms  have  been  revived  to  enrich  the  terminology  of 
science. 

Such  were  the  deep-grown  roots  of  Indo-Germanic  culture, 
such  the  direct  growth  of  intellectual  life  in  Athens  and  Rome. 
But  the  Graeco-Roman  spirit  did  not  pass  away  with  the  death 
of  the  body,  for  the  culture  of  the  ancient  world,  being  dead,  yet 
speaketh.  That  which  at  first  was  the  Hellenizing  of  mankind 
in  the  western  world  was  destined  to  become  the  Europeanizing 
of  the  western  man.  When  Greek  culture  and  Roman  civiliza- 
tion had  ceased  to  exist,  the  people  who  were  destined  to  revive 
them  were  still  in  a  raw  condition  bent  more  upon  destroying  the 
old  world  than  building  upon  it.  These  Germanic  tribes  were  to 
be  converted  to  Christianity,  cultured  according  to  the  Greek 
plan,  and  civilized  in  a  Roman  manner.  They  were  destined  in 
time  to  develop  their  own  national  cultures  partly  by  revivals  of 
the  ancient  European  culture  and  in  part  through  something 
indigenous  within  them.  We  must  now  analyze  the  cultures 
of  various  modern  nations  with  the  hope  of  discovering  the 
typical  within  them. 

ITALIAN  CULTURE  AND  THE  RENAISSANCE 

The  character  of  Italian  culture  invites  admiration  more  than  it 
provokes  analysis;  it  yields  more  enjoyment  than  enlightenment. 
For  the  most  part,  the  culture  of  Italy  may  be  regarded  as  one 
vast  picture  gallery.  It  has  its  poetry  from  Dante  to  Petrarch, 
and  after  the  Renaissance  was  to  give  the  world  modern  science 
in  the  person  of  Galileo.  During  the  Renaissance,  it  rejoiced  in 
the  arts  of  sculpture  and  architecture.  Then  there  was  Palestrina, 
who  may  not  be  related  to  modern  music  the  way  Bach  is,  but 
who  was  not  wanting  in  modern  technique.  But  still  it  is  the 
canvas  that  must  remain  the  symbol  of  Italian  culture,  or  paint- 


ITALIAN  CULTURE  AND  THE  RENAISSANCE    547 

ing  from  the  birth  o£  Cimabue  (c.  1240)  to  the  death  of  Titian 
(1576).  In  dealing  with  the  question  of  Italian  culture,  we 
must  consider  whether  it  was  a  Renaissance  movement  and,  if 
we  decide  that  it  was  not,  whether  it  was  really  helped  by  the 
revival  of  the  ancient  method.  We  are  in  the  habit  of  regarding 
Italian  culture  as  though  it  were  a  wistful  tendency  which 
emerged  from  the  gloom  of  the  Gothic  era  and  made  furtive 
gestures  in  the  direction  of  an  art  which  could  not  come  to  any 
culmination  until  the  Renaissance  appeared  in  all  its  glory,  just 
as  we  are  inclined  to  believe  that  the  decline  of  the  neo-classical 
style  with  its  simplicity  and  formalism  was  followed  by  the 
fantasies  of  the  Baroque.  A  superficial  view  of  the  XVth  cen- 
tury renders  such  a  conception  of  Italian  culture  plausible.  Yet 
it  is  more  profound  to  think  of  the  course  of  culture  in  Italy  as 
a  spiritual  movement  which  proceeded  from  the  Xllth  to  the 
XVIth  century,  from  Gothic  to  Baroque,  in  a  vital  and  creative 
manner,  to  be  interrupted  for  the  time  by  XVth-century  imita- 
tions of  the  pagan  manner.  Such  a  conception  of  Italian  culture 
pkces  us  in  a  position  where  we  must  regard  the  classical  Renais- 
sance as  a  hindrance  to  the  free  development  of  the  Italian  spirit. 
After  the  lapse  of  a  thousand  years  and  more,  it  was  impossible 
to  resuscitate  the  spirit  of  antiquity  with  whose  body  Italy  was 
quite  familiar.  In  the  interim,  Christianity  had  appeared  and 
developed  into  a  world-religion,  the  Gothic  spirit  had  spread 
over  Europe  and  given  its  art  a  distinct  style,  music  had  arisen 
and  was  soon  to  be  systematized  by  Palestrina  (c.  1524-1594),  and 
genius  had  come  forth  in  the  person  of  the  Italian  painter,  the 
Italian  poet.  The  characteristic  art  was  to  be  painting,  as  for- 
merly it  had  been  sculpture.  The  relation  between  ancient  and 
modern  art  was  chiefly  in  plastic  art  as  represented  by  Michel- 
angelo, and  to  some  extent  in  architecture.  The  great  Tuscan 
sculptor  had  been  deeply  affected  by  the  discovery  of  the  Lao- 
coon  group  in  1506,  itself  more  of  an  example  of  the  Baroque  or 
Romantic  than  of  Classicism.  But  this  and  other  examples  of 
classical  form  had  no  power  to  overcome  the  genius  of  Michel- 
angelo and  render  his  art  pagan.  His  attitude  toward  his  art 
was  radically  different  from  what  that  of  Pheidias  had  been. 
"  For  Pheidias  marble  is  the  cosmic  stuff  that  is  crying  out  for 


548  TYPES  OF  NATIONAL  CULTURE 

form.  The  story  of  Pygmalion  and  Galatea  expresses  the  very 
essence  of  that  art.  But  for  Michelangelo  marble  was  the  foe  to 
be  subdued,  the  prison  out  of  which  he  was  to  deliver  his  idea 
as  Siegfried  delivered  Brunhilde." 6 

REALISM  OF  ITALIAN  CULTURE 

Not  Greece  and  Rome,  but  nature  and  Christianity  are  to  be 
taken  as  the  true  foci  of  Italian  culture,  for  it  was  not  what 
artist  and  scientist  might  have  inherited  from  the  past  but  what 
they  felt  and  perceived  around  them  that  was  to  engender  the 
spirit  of  Italian  culture.  As  far  as  tradition  was  concerned,  this 
was  originally  Byzantine,  but  it  was  abandoned  as  early  as 
Cimabue.  One  sees  this  in  his  Madonna  Rucdlai  in  the  church 
of  Santa  Maria  Novella  at  Florence.  The  art  of  Giotto  (1276- 
1336),  his  pupil,  is  even  more  intuitive  and  vital;  it  reveals 
expression  and  action,  excels  in  certain  points  of  technique,  as 
the  representation  of  drapery,  and  is  nearer  nature  herself  than 
to  any  school  of  art.  The  same  independence  of  Classicism 
appears  in  Fra  Angelico  (1387-1455)3  whose  name  can  hardly 
be. attached  to  that  of  any  school  save  the  Gothic.  In  choice 
of  .subject  matter,  there  was  a  touch  of  paganism  in  the  art  of 
Botticelli  (c.  1444-1510),  who  painted  both  the  Venus  and  the 
Virgin,  but  the  manner  of  execution  in  its  flowing  line  was  not 
at  all  classical. 

The  course  of  Italian  culture,  unlike  that  of  France  or  Eng- 
land, where  continuity  has  prevailed,  was  comparatively  brief. 
None  the  less  was  it  a  compact  movement  which  has  given,  the 
world  culture  in  a  condensed  form.  We  have  seen  that  Italian 
culture  cannot  be  called  Renaissance  culture  in  the  classic  sense; 
it  was  itself  a  Renaissance  which,  unable  to  triumph  over  the  im- 
pressive forms  of  ancient  art,  came  to  an  untimely  end.  Since 
the  official  close  of  the  Renaissance,  Italian  culture  has  not  been 
able  to  compete  with  the  intellectual  and  aesthetic  work  put 
forth  elsewhere  in  Europe.  It  made  a  magnificent  beginning  a 
century  later  when  the  new  science  of  physics  was  practically 
established  by  Galileo  and  flashed  forth  a  century  later  when 

6  Spengler,  The  Decline  of  the  V^cst,  tr,  Atkinson,  Vol.  fc  p,  276^ 


THE  DOGE'S  PALACE,  VENICE 


SENATE  CHAMBER  IN  THE  DOGE*S  PALACE 

The  interior  of  the  palace  was  decorated  by  famous  Venetian, 

painters  of  the  sixteenth  century, 

ag®  $48) 


DILETTANTISM  OF  FRENCH  CULTURE     549 

Vice's  Scienza  Nuova  (1725)  suggested  the  possibility  of  social 
science.  But  for  the  most  part,  the  poetry  and  painting,  the 
architecture  and  sculpture  of  Italy  are  a  precious  memory.  This 
must  be  said  even  when,  in  addition  to  these  arts  of  the  Renais- 
sance, Italy  gave  opera  to  the  modern  world,  as  it  did  in  the 
XVIth  century  through  Emilio  del  Cavaliere,  Vecchio,  and 
Peri.  But  here,  again,  it  was  a  Renaissance  beginning  rather 
than  a  continuous  development. 

THE  DILETTANTISM  OF  FRENCH  CULTURE 

It  is  a  precarious  undertaking  to  attempt  in  a  few  pages  the 
characterization  of  a  national  culture  extending  over  several 
centuries  and  ramifying  among  the  various  arts.  We  can  do 
little  better  than  indulge  in  significant  adjectives.  In  this  spirit 
we  would  refer  to  French  culture  as  being  dilettant.  Unlike  the 
national  culture  of  Italy,  that  of  France  was  not  dependent  upon 
the  classical  Renaissance  and  did  not  develop  any  school  of  XVth- 
or  XVIth-century  painting.  The  culture  of  France,  rejoicing  in 
the  continuity  lacking  in  Italy,  grew  up  steadily  out  of  the 
mediaeval  period  and  has  continued  without  interruption  to  the 
present  century.  The  absence  of  Renaissance  painting,  itself  so 
conspicuous  not  in  Italy  alone  but  in  Germany,  Holland,  Bel- 
gium, and  Spain,  is  atoned  for  by  the  presence  of  a  culture-spirit 
whose  continuity  and  steadfastness  is  the  most  characteristic 
feature  of  Gallic  culture.  This,  however,  aside  from  its  Gothic 
architecture  of  the  Scholastic  era,  has  been  the  culture  of  the 
word  —  of  poetry,  drama,  or  literature  generally. 

The  tone  of  French  culture  is  that  of  dilettantism.  This  is  an 
unhappy  term,  but  the  offense  that  it  might  cause  may  be  avoided 
by  considering  just  what  it  means.  By  national  dilettantism  such 
as  one  finds  in  French  culture,  we  do  not  mean  any  such  intel- 
lectual superficiality  as  an  individual  displays  when  dabbling  in 
art  or  science.  There  is  no  such  superficiality  in  the  Gallic  mind, 
but  still  there  is  a  certain  lightness  of  touch  and  versatility  of 
action  that  justifies  the  use  of  the  term  employed.  Compare  the 
culture  of  France  with  that  of  Italy  and  you  behold  no  such 
religious  faith  as  the  Italian  mind  exhibited  in  a  practically  per- 


550  TYPES  OF  NATIONAL  CULTURE 

manent  mood  from  the  Gothic  period  to  the  Baroque,  when  its 
culture  flourished.  France,  likewise,  enjoys  none  of  the  empiri- 
cism which  has  made  the  English  mind  stolid  and  practical  in 
even  its  most  artistic  periods.  Nor  is  there  discernible  in  the 
French  mind  that  rationalism  which,  with  the  German,  deepened 
into  dogmatism.  On  the  contrary,  there  is  about  the  Gallic 
genius  a  noble  skepticism  in  the  sense  of  a  mind  that  refuses  to 
commit  itself  to  anything. 

GALLIC  SKEPTICISM 

The  character  of  Gallic  dilettantism  appears  in  the  way  that 
the  French  mind  plays  with  its  ideas.  Montaigne  played  with 
knowledge  when  he  asked,  "What  do  I  know?  —  Que  sats- 
je?  "  This  was  a  question  put  in  a  spirit  far  different  from  the 
tremendous  interrogative  of  Kant,  when  at  the  end  of  The 
Critique  of  Pure  Reason  he  asked,  "  What  can  I  know?  —  Was 
\ann  ich  wissen?"  Descartes'  academic  skepticism  which  led 
ultimately  to  belief  in  nothing  but  his  own  existence  is  not  really 
an  example  of  a  man  doubting,  but  of  a  mind  that  wishes  to 
see  what  can  be  accomplished  by  doubt.  The  same  sort  of 
dialectical  dilettantism  appears  in  Pascal's  Pensees,  in  which  the 
weakness  of  reason,  ugliness  of  nature,  and  hatefulness  of  self 
are  ideas  indulged  in  for  the  sake  of  discovering  the  innermost 
recesses  of  the  heart.  Rousseau  is  the  most  extreme  example  of 
the  dilettant.  He  played  with  the  ideas  of  culture  and  civiliza- 
tion as  a  child  might  play  with  toys  and  in  his  childishness  dis- 
claimed all  mental  and  moral  responsibility.  In  like  manner, 
Voltaire's  Candide  is  a  form  of  play  in  which  the  earth  itself  is 
the  toy.  One  cannot  fail  to  find  dilettantism  in  the  Positive  Phi- 
losophy of  Auguste  Comte,  which,  for  all  its  show  of  science, 
conveys  the  impression  that  the  author  is  amusing  himself,  al- 
though in  a  serious  way.  The  culmination  of  Comte's  idea,  the 
Religion  of  Humanity,  which  for  him  was  the  worship  of  hu- 
manity incarnate  in  his  sweetheart,  is  convincing  of  its  semi- 
serious  or  dilettant  spirit. 

Evidently  the  dilettant  tone  of  French  culture  is  something 
persistent.  Ernest  Renan  betrayed  it  theologically  in  his  Vic  de 


THE  CONTINUITY  OF  ENGLISH  CULTURE 

Jesus  (1863)  and  it  was  he  who  said,  "  Man  sees  clearly  at  the 
hour  which  is  now  striking  that  he  will  never  know  anything  o£ 
the  supreme  cause  of  the  universe  or  his  own  destiny.  Never- 
theless he  wishes  to  be  talked  to  about  all  that."  And  is  there 
not  the  same  distrust  of  logic  accompanied  by  a  free  play  of 
fancy  in  Bergson's  idea  that  the  intellect  must  surrender  to  the 
intuitive  faculty,  which  alone  is  able  to  comprehend  life?  Fur- 
ther touches  of  dilettantism  appear  in  the  arts.  Cubism,  al- 
though of  Spanish  origin,  has  been  furthered  by  the  French  as 
by  no  other  people.  The  same  may  be  said  of  Futurism  and 
Dadaism;  if  they  arose  outside  France,  it  has  been  within  its 
borders  that  these  movements  have  been  developed.  However, 
since  there  is  so  much  thickness  in  English  empiricism,  so  much 
heaviness  in  German  dogmatism,  to  say  nothing  of  the  nihilism 
of  Russian  culture  and  the  commercialism  of  the  American  mind, 
the  noble  dilettantism  of  the  French  mind  is  to  be  welcomed  and 
prized  for  the  freshness  of  its  tone  and  brightness  of  its  ideas. 

THE  CONTINUITY  OF  ENGLISH  CULTURE 

English  culture  resembles  French  in  being  indigenous  and 
continuous.  It  is  somewhat  akin  to  the  culture  of  Italy  in  that 
it  has  devoted  itself  to  art  instead  of  developing  tendencies  or 
aesthetical  theories;  then,  it  is  devoted  to  practically  a  single  art 
—  that  of  poetry.  There  was  English  Gothic  and  there  has  been 
English  painting,  as  that  of  Turner  and  Constable.  But  beside 
French  architecture  and  Italian  painting  English  efforts  in  those 
directions  can  only  suffer  by  comparison.  English  poetry,  how- 
ever, is  without  parallel  in  the  modern  world;  and,  then,  there 
is  always  Shakespeare. 

Although  we  must  regard  English  culture  in  the  direct  form 
of  literature,  we  must  not  overlook  the  fact  that  in  the  Elizabethan 
and  Victorian  periods  it  produced  its  culture-philosophers  — 
Bacon  and  Matthew  Arnold.  Yet  in  both  instances,  the  culture- 
ideal,  far  from  being  a  creative  one  calculated  to  engender  de- 
velopment in  the  fine  arts  generally,  -was  associated  with  the 
literary.  Both  Bacon's  Advancement  of  Learning  (1605)  and 
Arnold's  Culture  and  Anarchy  (1869)  are  concerned  with  books. 


552  TYPES  OF  NATIONAL  CULTURE 

In  like  manner,  both  these  exponents  o£  culture  consider  art, 
which  for  them  is  only  literary  art,  from  the  appreciative  or 
critical  standpoint,  not  the  creative.  They  appeal  to  reader  rather 
than  writer,  and  tend  to  think  of  culture  as  information.  A  more 
comprehensive  conception  of  the  cultural  was  afforded  in  Ar- 
nold's day  by  Ruskin,  who  was  aware  of  the  fact  that  beauty 
can  express  itself  in  the  less  articulate  forms  of  architecture  and 
painting. 

If  for  a  moment  we  return  to  the  theoretical  principle  of  cul- 
ture laid  down  in  Chapter  IV,  we  may  be  able  to  appraise  the 
value  of  culture  in  the  English  mind.  Culture,  we  recall,  con- 
cerns itself  with  the  contrast  between  animality  and  humanity. 
In  England's  case,  even  with  its  Darwinism,  we  may  not  say 
that  the  mind  has  remained  upon  the  plane  of  animality,  but  as 
surely  may  we  observe  that  it  has  not  wholly  surrendered  itself 
to  the  competitive  ideal  of  humanity.  Then,  has  England  with 
its  ever-pronounced  empiricism  seen  fit  to  cultivate  the  ideal  of 
the  Remote  as  in  a  moment  we  shall  find  this  in  German  tran- 
scendentalism? Or  has  the  English  nation  as  a  culture-people 
been  so  impressed  with  the  inward  possibilities  of  Contemplation 
that  it  has  minimized  the  ideal  of  Conquest?  It  is  true  that  the 
English  mind  has  long  felt  the  importance  of  the  inner  life,  as 
one  observes  in  its  religious  belief  and  reverence  for  conscience, 
but  apart  from  its  spiritual  and  ethical  earnestness  it  has  not 
surrendered  the  ideal  of  outer  existence  in  either  individual  or 
nation.  But  these  are  largely  theoretical  considerations. 

ENGLISH  POETRY 

The  development  of  British  culture  does  not  reveal  any  restless 
ramification  into  all  the  forms  of  art,  but  an  almost  uninterrupted 
growth  along  the  single  line  of  poetry.  It  is  as  though  the 
English  intellect  in  forsaking  the  immediate  realms  of  the  em- 
pirical, practical,  and  political  had  resolved  to  indulge  in  only 
an  articulate  form  of  art  and  through  the  beauty  of  language 
develop  the  aesthetical  in  the  most  sensible  manner  possible.  The 
silent  and  implied  beauty  of  painting,  still  less  the  mystical  beauty 
of  music,  have  made  no  such  appeal  as  is  found  in  the  rational 


PERSISTENCE  OF  THE  POETIC  PRINCIPLE    553 

medium  of  language.  Architecture?  Yes,  this  solid  and  use- 
ful art  has  made  its  appeal  to  the  British  brain,  but  not  in  such 
ways  as  to  open  architectural  avenues  comparable  with  those  of 
ancient  Greece  and  modern  France.  The  English  people  have 
followed  more  of  a  Roman  model.  Painting,  also,  in  the  form 
of  landscape  and  portrait  —  Constable  and  Gainsborough  —  but 
no  development  of  the  color-art  such  as  one  finds  in  the  Renais- 
sance lands.  As  for  the  art  of  tone  apart  from  the  indirect  de- 
velopment of  this  in  English  poetry,  the  land  of  Shakespeare  is 
practically  without  music. 

But  in  the  articulate  art  of  poetry,  which  reveals  the  power 
of  the  word,  England  is  easily  able  to  take  its  place  in  the  select 
line  of  peoples  with  their  national  cultures.  When  one  considers 
British  verse,  which  has  made  supreme  use  of  a  language  rich 
in  both  Anglo-Saxon  and  Latin  words  as  German  and  French 
are  not,  one  is  inclined  to  refer  to  great  names  —  Spenser  and 
Shakespeare  in  the  Great  Queen's  day,  Milton,  and  then  Brown- 
ing and  Tennyson  in  the  era  of  the  other  great  woman  monarch. 
But  there  was  poetry  before  Shakespeare  transcended  his  land 
and  age,  and  a  continuous  stream  of  verse  between  Elizabeth  and 
Victoria.  As  for  Shakespeare,  to  whose  genius  the  Germans  lay 
some  claim,  it  might  be  observed  that  when  he  was  intent  upon 
dramatic  effect  he  staged  his  play  outside  England  —  Italy,  Den- 
mark, Egypt. 

PERSISTENCE  OF  THE  POETIC  PRINCIPLE 

Now,  it  is  the  continuity  of  English  poetry-culture  that  should 
attract  notice  and  receive  emphasis,  for  its  insular  aesthetics  reveals 
no  likeness  to  the  condensed  culture  o£  Italy  or  the  sporadic 
efforts  of  Germany;  rather  is  England  like  France  in  the  strength 
and  smoothness  of  its  intellectual  energy.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
period  had  its  Beowulf  and  Cynewulf  and  a  stream  of  melody 
however  slender  from  the  year  700  to  the  Norman  conquest  some 
four  centuries  later.  The  middle  period  of  English  literature  is 
well  filled  by  Chaucer,  whose  greatness,  as  we  appreciate  it  now, 
had  power  to  carry  the  poetic  spirit  over  the  period  made  barren 
by  the  Hundred  Years'  War  and  the  Wars  of  the  Roses.  But 


TYPES  OF  NATIONAL  CULTURE 

even  here  a  foreign  war  and  domestic  turmoil  did  not  prohibit 
the  appearance  of  Sir  Thomas  Malory's  Morte  d' Arthur.  To 
mention  the  Elizabethan  period  is  to  pronounce  the  magic  name 
of  Shakespeare  and  raise  British  culture  to  a  special,  sudden 
height.  Nor  should  we  ignore  the  fact  that,  in  addition  to  the 
Elizabethan  court  there  was  a  kind  of  Elizabethan  underworld, 
and  if  the  official  stage  was  absorbed  by  the  genius  of  Shakespeare, 
there  were  commercial  theaters  whose  dramatic  wants  were  sup- 
plied by  such  playwrights  as  Thomas  Dekker,  Thomas  Hey  wood, 
and  Thomas  Middleton.  Indeed,  some  two  thousand  plays  were 
produced  between  the  middle  of  the  XVIth  and  the  middle  of 
the  XVIIth  centuries,  yet  the  world  has  decided  to  let  Shake- 
speare stand  as  the  symbol  of  this  great  dramatic  movement  in 
which  all  the  world  was  indeed  a  stage. 

The  persistence  of  the  poetic  principle  was  threatened  by  the 
Puritan  regime  in  which  the  play  was  prohibited,  but  it  failed  to 
nip  in  the  bud  the  genius  of  Milton,  who  himself  emerged  as  a 
world  figure  when  the  period  of  Restoration  appeared.  Here 
were  also  such  technical  poets  as  Dryden  and  Pope,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  poetically  minded  Bunyan.  What  the  drab  XVIIIth  cen- 
tury lacked  in  poetic  fervor  it  made  up,  in  part,  by  the  creation 
of  the  modern  novel,  the  development  of  the  essay,  a  touch  of 
genuine  drama  in  Goldsmith,  and  the  romantic  reaction  against 
Classicism.  The  XlXth  century  saw  England  caught  up  a 
second  time  in  a  cloud  of  poetry  or  literature  generally,  in  the 
Victorian  period.  The  present  century,  while  somewhat  too 
sophisticated  for  the  naive  spirit  of  art,  has  made  room*  for 
scientific-social  writers  easily  recognized  in  the  persons  of  Thomas 
Hardy,  Bernard  Shaw,  and  John  Galsworthy.  English  culture 
in  the  sense  of  enlightenment  has  not  been  wanting  in  scientific 
contributions  of  unusual  importance,  as  one  realizes  the  moment 
he  mentions  the  names  of  Newton  and  Dalton,  Darwin  and,  in 
our  century,  Sir  Ernest  Rutherford.  English  culture  has  been 
much  more  stolid  than  that  of  France  and  might  be  called  the 
culture  of  naturalism.  What  it  lacks  in  beauty  it  makes  up  in 
power.  It  is  a  type  of  culture  so  well  supported  as  to  insure 
itself  for  a  long  period. 


GERMAN  CULTURE 


THE  SPORADIC  NATURE  OF  GERMAN  CULTURE 


555 


The  course  of  culture  in  Germany  has  been  the  opposite  of 
smooth.  The  American  mind  which  studies  European  cultures 
for  the  sake  of  instruction  and  nourishment  observes  in  Teutonic 
culture  something  akin  to  the  political  geography  of  the  land; 
this  is  broken  up  into  kingdoms  and  principalities  as  its  culture 
is  scattered  about  in  periods,  as  Storm  and  Stress,  Romanti^  and 
the  like.  Like  other  European  cultures,  that  of  Germany  had 
its  background,  which  was  that  of  Lied  and  Saga,  but  from  these 
unto  modern  times  to  say  nothing  of  the  present  there  was  no 
continuous  development.  What  in  other  nations  was  the  Renais- 
sance was  to  Germany  the  Reformation,  whose  literature  was 
bound  to  sacrifice  style  to  doctrine  and  religious  propaganda. 
Then  while  other  nations  were  developing  their  special  types  of 
culture,  Germany  was  in  the  throes  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War 
(1618-1648).  The  result  was  that  German  literature  enjoyed 
scarcely  more  than  a  century  of  existence,  or  from  the  birth  of 
Goethe  in  1749  to  the  death  of  Heine  in  1856,  a  period  bounded 
by  religion  at  the  beginning  and  science  at  the  end. 

In  the  art  of  painting  Germany  made  a  geniune  beginning  in 
the  Renaissance  painting  of  Diirer  (1471-1528)  and  Holbein 
(1497-1543),  but  this  movement  was  interrupted  by  the  Reforma- 
tion and  when  the  artistic  spirit  reasserted  itself  it  was  through 
the  art  of  music.  However,  it  must  be  said  in  behalf  of  German 
culture  that  its  music,  exemplified  so  superbly  by  Bach,  Haydn, 
and  Mozart,  tends  to  redeem  the  ugliness  of  such  an  unaesthetic 
period  as  the  XVIIIth  century.  This  music  persisted  with 
Beethoven  as  its  transitional  figure  between  century  and  century, 
classic  and  romantic  schools,  and  became  an  unusual  force  in  the 
case  of  Wagner  (1813-1883),  but  when  we  think  of  German 
culture  since  that  time,  we  think  of  Kultur,  of  politics. 

The  German  mind  is  characterized  by  its  tendency  to  promote 
an  inner  unity  of  thought  and  feeling  without  the  added  ability 
to  realize  this  in  an  objective  form.  It  entertained  nationalistic 
ideals  as  far  back  as  the  days  of  Luther,  but  these  were  not  real- 
ized in  the  form  of  a  unified  government  until  the  days  of  Bis- 
marck. It  enjoyed  a  religious  and,  mystical  spirit,  but  this  it  has 


556  TYPES  OF  NATIONAL  CULTURE 

not  been  able  to  use  in  the  form  of  a  unified  church,  since  it  is 
partly  Protestant  and  partly  Catholic  in  theology  and  politics. 
It  has  indulged  fine  aesthetic  ideals,  but  it  is  only  in  the  art  o£ 
music,  so  akin  to  its  own  national  spirit,  that  Germany  has  been 
able  to  compete  with  the  culture  of  other  nations.  From  the 
beginning  of  modern  times,  something  has  held  this  people  back, 
something  has  operated  to  divide  the  national  spirit.  At  the 
present  time,  it  is  the  aim  of  the  Hitler  party  to  bestow  the 
long-sought  nationalism  upon  the  German  people. 

GOETHE  AS  CULTURE  PATTERN 

Germany  had  its  architectural  development  in  both  the  Ro- 
manesque and  Gothic  periods.  The  Rhine  reveals  this  in  the 
Romanesque  structures  at  Mainz,  Speier,  and  Worms;  in  the 
Gothic  cathedrals  or  minsters  in  Cologne,  Strassburg,  and  Frei- 
burg. The  Danube  also  saw  its  Gothic  in  cathedrals  at  Regens- 
burg,  Ulrn,  and  St.  Stephens  at  Vienna.  We  have  mentioned 
the  Renaissance  painting  of  Holbein  and  Diirer,  but  these  were 
not  the  only  artists  of  the  period,  for  there  were  also  the  Cranachs, 
Lucas  the  elder  and  Lucas  the  younger.  The  poetry  that  we 
have  seen  fit  to  crowd  into  the  century  between  1750  and  1850 
was  glorified  by  the  grand  name  of  Goethe,  In  a  certain  sense, 
Germany  is  Goethe  and  Goethe  Germany.  The  importance  of 
Goethe  is  not  likely  to  be  overestimated,  not  even  when  one,  like 
Spengler,  identifies  western  culture  with  the  name  of  Goethe's 
hero  and  thus  styles  it  "  Faustian."  At  the  same  time,  one  can- 
not fail  to  observe  in  Goethe  a  certain  noble  weakness  character- 
istic of  the  German  people. 

This  is  the  pathetic  inability  to  unify  the  inner  life  of  the 
soul  with  the  outer  existence  of  the  body,  the  eternal  with  the 
temporal.  Extreme  subjectivity  appears  in  The  Sorrows  of 
Werther,  a  kind  of  balance  between  subjective  and  objective  in 
Torquato  Tasso,  and  finally,  an  acquired,  studied  objectivity  in 
the  complete  Faust.  Goethe  was  aroused  to  creative  activity  by 
reading  Shakespeare  and  has  been  spoken  of  as  "the  German 
Shakespeare,"  but  there  is  an  enormous  difference  between  a 
type  of  genius  that,  like  nature  herself,  puts  forth  its  products 


GERMAN  DOGMATISM  557 

Unconsciously,  with  limitless  richness  and  no  trace  o£  egoism,  and 
another  which  labors  splendidly  with  itself  until  at  last  it  achieves 
genuine  greatness.  Nevertheless,  the  poetry  of  Goethe  while  self- 
conscious  and  often  pedantic  is  of  more  value  to  the  conscious 
culture  of  a  nation  than  anything  and  everything  in  Shakespeare. 
Hence  one  turns  to  Shakespeare  for  endless  entertainment,  but 
to  Goethe  for  enlightenment.  It  is  only  in  Hamlet  that  one  can 
find  anything  to  brood  over  for  any  protracted  period,  while 
the  poetry  of  Goethe  seems  labored  because  it  is  burdened  with 
thought. 

DOGMATIC  CHARACTER  OF  GERMAN  CULTURE 

There  can  be  no  doubt  about  the  authenticity  of  German  cul- 
ture in  the  past;  the  only  question  is  one  that  concerns  its  future. 
Those  who  know  their  Goethe  and  Schiller  have  not  been  in- 
clined to  marvel  at  the  clever  novels  and  plays  of  Hauptmann  and 
Sudermann,  which  are  far  from  being  distinctly  German  thing?. 
Moreover,  the  student  of  national  cultures  is  bound  to  regret 
the  militaristic  tone  of  Bernhardi  in  his  pre-war  work,  Germany 
and  the  Next  War  (1912),  in  which  the  question  of  German 
national  culture  is  discussed,  and  the  violent  polemics  of  Kaiser 
Wilhelm,  in  which  the  more  general  term  Kultur  was  given  and 
taken  to  mean  intellectual  and  aesthetical  culture  in  the  form  of 
Bildung.  It  was  around  this  strange  standard  of  deutsche  Kultur 
that  the  intellectuals  of  Germany  rallied  or  were  rallied  in  1914. 
But  the  Germans  in  their  lust  after  nationalism  had  had  this  in 
their  blood  for  a  century.  Fichte  expressed  the  ideal  of  German 
unity  on  the  basis  of  national  culture  in  the  sad  days  of  the 
Napoleonic  campaigns.  "  Nothing  in  the  world  of  sense,  noth- 
ing which  concerns  our  acts  or  affections  has  value  except  as  it 
makes  for  culture." 7  It  was  unfortunate  that  he  should  have 
given  a  militaristic- touch  to  this  as  he  did  when  he  added,  "  War 
makes  for  culture,'*8  Culture  is  indeed  a  nationalizing  principk 
which  this  country  has  still  to  develop,  but  in  its  spiritual  breadth 
it  is  even  more  international  in  character. 

German  culture  may  be  characterized  as  dogmatic,  although 

7  Wer\e>  VT,  p.  86.  8  /*.,  p.  101. 


558  TYPES  OF  NATIONAL  CULTURE 

not  in  a  bad  sense.  It  is  stamped  by  ideas  and  proceeds  from  the 
principles  of  aesthetics  to  the  practices  o£  art.  The  aesthetics  of 
Baumgarten  and  the  criticism  of  Lessing  preceded  the  poetry  of 
Goethe  and  Schiller,  and  the  transcendental  philosophy  of  Kant 
and  Fichte  seem  to  have  been  necessary  as  the  theoretical  basis 
of  the  Romantic  School.  German  culture  is  Grecian  culture 
reversed.  Faust  is  the  very  opposite  of  Apollo.  However,  the 
culture-doctrine  of  Germany,  even  when  it  is  dogmatic,  is  most 
useful  for  purposes  of  study.  One  does  not  feel  in  German 
culture  what  he  experiences  in  the  suave  intellectual  life  of  France 
or  England,  but  he  learns  from  Germany  more  than  France  and 
England  together  can  teach  him. 

THE  Two  EPOCHS  OF  SPANISH  CULTURE 

The  culture  of  a  nation  is  the  spiritual  gift  which  the  world 
cannot  refuse  or  whose  bestowal  forget.  In  the  case  of  Spain,  at 
the  western  end  of  the  enchanted  Mediterranean,  there  was  the 
gift  of  the  western  hemisphere  or  the  disclosure  of  a  new  world. 
In  its  long  history,  Spain  has  undergone  two  experiences  which 
have  marked  its  national  character  and  placed  an  impress  upon  its 
culture.  The  first  of  these  experiences  was  the  so-called  "Re- 
conquest,"  or  the  long  series  of  wars  between  Christians  and 
Mohammedans  continuing  intermittently  from  the  Vlllth  to  the 
XVth  century  and  ending  at  last  in  the  surrender  of  the  famous 
fortress  of  the  Alhambra  in  Granada  to  the  arnyes  of  the  Catholic 
sovereigns  Ferdinand  and  Isabella.  This  was  in  January,  1492. 
In  the  following  August,  Christopher  Columbus,  under  the  pat- 
ronage of  Queen  Isabella,  sailed  westward  to  discover  a  new 
route  to  the  Indies  and  returned  "  to  give  a  new  world  to  Castile 
and  Leon,"  as  an  old  Spanish  rhyme  puts  it.  For  the  next  cen- 
tury and  a  half,  Spain  was  the  richest  and  most  powerful  nation 
in  Europe,  the  head  of  a  world-empire,  the  center  of  a  cultural 
domain  whose  only  rival  was  the  England  of  Elizabeth. 

Out  of  the  turmoil  of  the  Reconquest  the  first  masterpiece  of 
Spanish  literature  was  born.  This  was  the  great  epic  Poem  of 
the  Cid,  or  Cantar  de  mio  Cid,  which  recounts  the  adventures  of 
Rodrigo  Diaz,  the  Cid  Campeador.  This  Lord  Champion,  exiled 


DON  QUIXOTE 

from  Castile  because  o£  the  displeasure  of  King  Alfonso  VI, 
fights  against  the  Mohammedans  and  captures  the  city  of  Valen- 
cia. The  Cid  in  character  is  the  perfect  warrior,  the  first  Spanish 
national  hero  and  the  incarnation  of  his  country's  ideals.  To 
understand  these  ideals  one  must  appreciate  his  character.  The 
Cid  was  so  human  in  character  as  to  have  been  of  the  earth 
earthly.  Although  the  epic  that  bears  his  name  glorifies  him,  it 
does  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  he  was  a  historical  character 
nor  does  it  endow  him  with  excessive  virtues,  still  less  with  super- 
natural powers.  Compared  with  the  hero  of  the  Chanson  de 
Roland  or  the  Siegfried  of  the  Nibdungenlied,  the  Cid  is  a  de- 
cidedly realistic  character,  brave,  loyal,  and  courteous  enough,  but 
sufficiently  human  to  display  resentment  and  stoop  to  trickery. 
We  are  prone  to  think  of  Spanish  culture  as  something  romantic, 
but  it  is  just  as  thoroughly  realistic. 

DON  QUIXOTE 

Out  of  the  abundance  of  life  in  the  Golden  Age  of  Spain  which 
followed  upon  the  discovery  of  America  and  the  world-wide  ex- 
pansion of  the  Spanish  Empire,  there  issued  a  wealth  of  literary 
and  artistic  material  which  the  world  now  accepts  as  something 
more  lasting  than  the  establishment  of  the  empire  itself.  During 
this  classic  age,  the  XVIth  and  XVIIth  centuries,  Lope  de  Vega 
wrote  dramas  literally  by  the  thousands  and  Calderon  composed 
his  religious  and  allegorical  dramas  in  which  Shelley  and  others 
were  to  take  delight.  But  the  greatest  gift  of  the  Golden  Age  was 
Don  Quixote,  The  Adventures  of  the  Ingenious  Gentleman,  Don 
Quixote  of  La  Mancha,  Almost  everybody  is  familiar  with  the 
story  of  the  poor,  crazed  knight  who,  with  rusty  spear  and  patched 
helmet,  set  out  to  right  the  wrongs  of  a  perverse  world.  His 
very  name  is  the  symbol  of  impractical  idealism  and  to  be  quixotic 
is  to  be  nobly  thoughtless  of  self.  But  it  must  not  be  overlooked 
that  the  true  greatness  of  this  great  work  by  Cervantes  lies  more 
in  the  serene  sense  of  reality  that  pervades  the  story  than  in  the 
fanaticism  of  the  hero.  The  adventures  of  Don  Quixote  are 
distinguished  from  those  of  a  hundred  other  knights-errant  by 
the  fact  that  he  rides  through  a  real  world  while  these  others 


560  TYPES  OF  NATIONAL  CULTURE 

are  found  in  some  far-off  fairy  land.  Then,  likewise,  Don 
Quixote  is  ever  accompanied  by  one  of  the  most  realistic  char- 
acters in  imaginative  literature  —  the  peasant  Sancho  Panza,  his 
squire.  Each  character  of  Cervantes'  work  is  a  distinct  creation; 
the  realist  is  as  authentic  as  the  idealist. 

THE  PICARESQUE  NOVEL 

But  Cervantes  was  not  the  first  to  turn  his  attention  to  the 
humble  character  or  genre  figure.  Half  a  century  before  Don 
Quixote  was  published,  there  appeared  an  anonymous  booklet 
entitled,  The  Life  of  Lazarillo  of  Tormes  and  his  fortunes  and 
Adversities.  This  marked  the  beginning  of  the  "  picaresque 
novel."  This  type  of  fiction  assumed  the  form  of  satirical  writing 
purporting  to  be  the  autobiography  of  a  picaro,  or  rogue  who 
respects  no  precepts  nor  conventions  but  makes  his  way  by  his 
wits.  The  effrontery  of  such  a  character  makes  it  possible  for 
him  to  penetrate  the  sham  and  conceit  of  society,  while  his  astute- 
ness enables  him  to  capitalize  such  social  traits.  Lazarillo  was  the 
first  of  these  rascals,  but  his  brethren  soon  became  numerous. 
Like  him,  these  picaresque  characters  are  shrewd  and  hard- 
hearted opportunists  living  a  real  and  utterly  unsentimental 
existence  in  a  sordid  and  selfish  world.  The  type  of  novel 
which  develops  such  human  characters  affords  the  last  word  in 
realistic  fiction. 

There  is  realism  in  Spanish  painting  as  well  as  in  Spanish 
literature,  or  a  mingling  of  idealism  and  realism.  The  superb 
canvases  of  Velasquez  are  as  objective  as  nature  herself  in  their 
adjustment  of  beauty  to  ugliness.  This  "  painter's  painter  "  and 
master  of  technique  is  as  ready  to  depict  drunken  peasants  and 
dwarfs  as  the  members  of  the  royal  family  of  Philip  IV.  For 
Velasquez  beauty  is  the  expression  o£  reality,  hence  he  paints  the 
ugly  chin  of  his  royal  patron  with  the  same  fidelity  with  which 
he  renders  the  humped  back  of  the  jester.  To  a  certain  extent, 
this  realism  may  be  attributed  to  Murillo,  whose  canvases  reveal 
Madonnas  or  peasant  girls,  saints  or  street  urchins.  Among  other 
noble  realists  of  Spanish  studios  are  Zurbar£n,  Ribera,  and  de 
Goya. 


RUSSIAN  CULTURE  AND  NIHILISM          56! 

RUSSIAN  CULTURE  AND  NIHILISM 

When  we  attempt  to  come  to  an  understanding  with  the  culture 
of  old  Russia,  we  are  made  to  feel  that,  as  its  Dostoievsky  said, 
"  Russia  is  a  freak  of  nature  "  and  "  the  Russian  soul  is  a  dark 
place."  The  types  of  national  culture  we  have  examined  in  the 
intellectual  development  of  Europe  from  Greece  to  Germany, 
have  revealed  fairly  small  and  homogeneous  nations  occupied 
with  native  ideas.  In  the  case  of  Russia,  however,  we  find  a  land 
overwhelming  in  size  and  dominated  by  the  "  black-earth  force." 
In  addition  to  this  geographical  factor,  there  is  a  sociological  one 
also,  for  Russia  is  a  mixture  of  East  and  West.  "  Scratch  the 
Russian,"  said  Dostoievsky,  "  and  you'll  find  the  Tatar."  The 
Russian's  sense  of  national  destiny,  voiced  by  Gogol  in  1842,  is 
of  special  interest  at  the  present  time.  "And  you,  Russia  of 
mine,  are  you  not  speeding  like  a  troika  which  nought  can 
overtake?  Is  not  the  road  smoking  beneath  your  wheels  and 
the  bridges  thundering  as  you  cross  them?  .  .  .  Whither 
are  you  speeding,  O  Russia  of  mine?  Whither?  Answer 
me!  But  no  answer  comes,  only  the  weird  sound  of  your 
collar  bells.  Rent  into  a  thousand  shreds,  the  air  roars  past 
you,  for  you  are  overtaking  the  whole  world  and  shall  one 
,  day  force  all  nations,  all  empires  to  stand  aside  to  give  you 
way."0 

The  outer  culture  of  Russia,  in  distinction  from  its  strange 
culture-spirit,  can  be  identified  generally  by  a  glance  at  its  archi- 
tecture and  literature.  After  a  long  preliminary  period  marked 
by  insignificant  wooden  structures,  Russia  inaugurated  its  history 
of  architecture  by  imitating  the  Byzantine  style  made  character- 
istic and  spectacular  by  weird  cupolas  and  metal  decorations. 
During  the  great  Gothic  period  of  Europe,  Russian  architecture 
was  halted  by  the  Tatar  invasion  (1238)  and  the  weight  of  the 
Tatar  yoke,  which  was  not  thrown  off  until  the  time  of  Ivan 
the  Great,  in  1480.  From  the  Byzantine  style,  Russia  passed  to  the 
Baroque,  as  it  may  best  be  styled  although  it  retained  some  of  its 
oriental  forms  and  indulged  in  certain  excesses  of  the  Rococo. 
A  striking  example  o£  the  Byzantine  appears  in  the  Ostankino 

*  Dead  Souls,  end  of  Part  I. 
S*T.— 37 


562  TYPES  OF  NATIONAL  CULTURE 

Church  at  Moscow;  of  the  Baroque,  in  the  Winter  Palace  at  St. 
Petersburg. 

Russian  literature,  to  which  we  shall  turn  in  a  moment  for  en- 
lightenment on  the  subject  of  Russian  culture,  fails  to  follow  the 
analogy  of  European  writing  generally.  It  dates  back  hardly 
earlier  than  the  XVIIIth  century  when,  especially  in  the  reign 
of  Peter  the  Great  (1672-1725),  the  Russian  mind  came  under 
the  influence  of  French  and  German  authors.  A  beginning  in 
the  Russian  poetry  of  the  cultural  period  was  made  by  Antiokh 
Kantemir  (1708-1744),  but  the  most  brilliant  representative  of 
the  school  was  the  romantic  poet  Alexander  Pushkin  (1799-1837). 
Yet  the  most  significant  factor  in  Russian  culture  is  the  Russian 
novel.  .  Sometimes  the  Russian  novel  is  in  line  with  the  usual 
work  of  fiction,  as  in  Dostoievsky's  Brothers  Karamazov  and 
Tolstoi's  Anna  Kartnina,  but  for  the  most  part  the  Russian  work 
is  a  species  of  propaganda  or  what  might  be  called  thesis-novel. 
We  will  look  into  it  for  the  sake  of  discovering  how  the  typical 
Russian  writer  of  the  XlXth  century  regarded  his  land  and  the 
state  of  its  national  culture. 

THE  RUSSIAN  NOVEL 

Gogol,  as  we  have  observed*  prophesied  the  rise  of  Russia  and 
its  descent  upon  Europe,  but  later  writers  tend  to  despair  of 
Russia's  destiny  and  to  depreciate  its  state  of  culture.  "  There  is 
no  one,  as  yet,  among  us;  there  are  no  men,  look  where  you  will," 
says  a  character  in  one  of  Turgenev's  stories.  "  All  are  either 
small  fry  or  squabblers,  petty  Hamlets,  cannibals,  either  under- 
ground gloom  and  thicket,  or  bullies,  empty  triflers  and  drum 
sticks."  Yet  in  a  spirit  somewhat  akin  to  that  of  Gogol,  Turgenev 
proceeds  to  predict  the  coming  of  Russian  men.  "  They  will 
come?  O,  thou  soil!  Thou  black-earth  force!  Thou  hast  said, 
'  They  will  come? '  Behold  I  put  thy  words  on  record." 10  How- 
ever, while  he  was  inditing  such  sentiments  he  could  not  refrain 
from  speaking  of  his  land  as  "  anonymous  Russia,"  which  seemed 
to  lack  originality  and  the  power  to  give  anything  to  the  world. 
"  Our  dear  mother,  Orthodox  Russia,  might  sink  down  to  the 

10  On  the  Eve,  tr.  Hapgood,  pp.  232-233. 


THE  VALUES  OF  RUSSIAN  CULTURE        563 

nethermost  Hell,  and  not  a  single  tack,  not  a  single  pin  would 
be  disturbed.  Everything  would  remain  quite  calmly  in  its 
place,  because  even  the  samovar  and  linden  bast  slippers,  the 
shaft  arch  and  the  knout,  those  renowned  products  of  ours,  were 
not  invented  by  us." 13- 

At  the  close  of  the  XlXth  century,  Maxim  Gorky,  a  lineal, 
literary  descendant  of  Gogol,  resumed  anew  the  question  of 
Russia's  place  in  the  world.  This  he  discusses  on  the  basis  of 
"  a  foreign  word  called  '  culture.'  "  Just  as  Dostoievsky  had  re- 
ferred to  what  he  called  "  the  Russian's  longing  for  seemliness," 
so  does  Gorky  indicate  that  Russia's  great  need  is  order.  "  That 
means,"  says  a  significant  character  in  Forna  Gordyeeff,  "that 
a  cultured  man  is  he  who  loves  business  and  order,  who  in  general 
loves  to  arrange  life,  loves  to  live,  knows  the  value  of  himself  and 
life." 12  Man  was  appointed  to  organize  life,  but  the  Russian 
has  not  heeded  his  divine  vocation.  "  You  have  not  made  life, 
but  a  prison,"  says  Foma  in  the  story  just  mentioned.  "  You  have 
not  constructed  life;  you  have  made  a  cesspool." 

THE  VALUES  OF  RUSSIAN  CULTURE 

In  spite  of  such  derogatory  criticism  on  the  part  of  Russia's 
own  spokesmen,  the  land  of  the  "  black-earth  force  "  has  not  been 
wanting  in  genius-culture.  It  has  developed  a  characteristic 
form  of  architecture  based  upon  the  Byzantine,  but  developed 
in  its  own  national  manner,  especially  in  its  gorgeous  minarets. 
Russian  music  is  still  more  expressive  of  the  Slavic  spirit.  The 
characteristic  Russian  composition  is  divided  into  phrases  of  five 
or  seven  measures  instead  of  the  even-measured  ones  of  the 
Nordic.  Its  modal  basis  is  found  in  the  melodies  that  have  come 
down  from  the  primitive  period  through  the  Greek  Orthodox 
Church.  The  mood  of  such  music  is  not  simply  somber;  it  is 
made  up  of  sharp  contrasts  between  the  melancholy  deepening 
into  despair  to  the  gay  bordering  on  the  riotous.  Outside  Russia, 
it  was  influenced  by  Tschaikowsky  and  Rubinstein;  its  national- 
ist representatives  are  Moussorgsky,  Borodin,  Cui,  and  Rimsky- 
Korsakoff. 

«  Smoke*  tr,  Hapgood,  p.  151,          12  Foma  Gordyteff,  tr,  Hapgood,  p.  4^3* 


564  TYPES  OF  NATIONAL  CULTURE 

Within  the  field  of  the  natural  sciences,  the  world  is  indebted 
to  Lobatchevsky  for  a  system  of  non-Euclidean  mathematics 
which,  with  that  of  Riemann,  has  enabled  the  modern  man  to 
take  a  macroscopic  instead  of  a  purely  mundane  view  of  the 
universe.  Mendelieff  organized  and  rationalized  the  science  of 
chemistry  when  he  proposed  the  Periodic  Law  adjusting  the 
then-known  chemical  elements  to  one  another  and  making  possi- 
ble the  successful  prediction  of  the  existence  of  others.  Pavlov 
has  given  psychology  the  "  conditioned  reflex  "  which  has  made 
the  psychology  of  Behaviorism  possible.  The  Russian  soul  may 
have  been  a  "  dark  place,"  but  it  has  not  been  wholly  wanting 
in  light. 

Of  all  modern  nations,  Russia  has  been  significant  in  setting 
the  culture-problem  in  a  vivid  light,  although  often  an  unfavor- 
able one.    The  question  whether  a  nation  should  devote  itself  to 
remote  interests  and  inner  ideals  when  there  are  immediate  needs 
and  urgent  tasks  before  it  was  taken  up  by  these  authors  of  novels 
with  ideas.    Turgenev  had  had  a  taste  of  European  life  and  was 
loyal  to  the  idea  of  Russia  rather  than  to  Russia  itself.    He  is 
fond  of  depicting  Russia  as  Hamlet,  the  ineffective  dreamer,  when 
it  should  be  Don  Quixote,  the  unselfish  idealist.    On  the  other 
hand,  Dostoievsky,  without  really  questioning  the  possibility  of 
national  culture,  was  in  doubt  about  its  desirability.    Instead  of 
making  man  effective,  culture  may  so  sharpen  his  faculties  as  to 
render  him  vicious  and  in  opposition  to  the  moral  purpose  of 
life.  The  reader  of  Dostoievsky,  an  extraordinary  but  disordered 
mind,  finds  it  difficult  to  form  a  clear  idea  of  his  intention,  but 
can  gather  the  idea  that  culture  inclines  man  toward  crime  and 
should  be  controlled  by  compassion.  Let  the  reader  of  the  Russian 
novel  compare  Raskolnikow,  in  Crime  and  Punishment,  with 
Myshkin  in  The  Idiot,  and  he  will  observe  the  striking  contrast 
between  the  intellectual  and  the  moral.   This  appears  in  opposed 
maxims.   "  A  cultured  man  has  the  right  to  commit  crime,  even 
murder."    Such  is  the  motif  of  one  work,  while  the  imperative 
ideal  of  the  other  is  "  Compassion  is  the  only  law  of  human  exist- 
ence."   Now,  this  is  in  a  way  a  conflict  between  the  Tatar  and 
Buddhist  ideals  of  the  ambiguous  Russian  mind,  of  "  anonymous 
Russia."  .   ,  .        • 


AMERICAN  CULTURE  AN  ASPIRATION      565 

The  culture-issue,  or  the  conflict  between  the  individual's  ideals 
and  society's  needs,  was  voiced  by  Dostoievsky  when  he  said, 
through  one  of  his  characters,  "  The  whole  question  lies  in  the 
question,  which  is  more  beautiful,  Shakespeare  or  boots,  Raphael 
or  petroleum?"13  Elsewhere  in  this  same  work,  Raphael's 
masterpiece  is  contrasted  in  value  with  simple  and  useful  objects 
and  the  opinion  is  expressed  that  "the  Sistine  Madonna  is  in- 
ferior to  a  glass  or  a  pencil."  In  like  manner,  one  of  the  char- 
acters in  The  Possessed  speaks  of  "  the  rumble  of  the  carts  carry- 
ing bread  to  humanity  being  more  important  than  the  Sistine 
Madonna."  This  is,  of  course,  the  Buddhist  ideal  of  compassion, 
which  affected  both  Dostoievsky  and  Tolstoi.  As  for  the  Hellenic 
ideal,  it  is  "  the  idiot "  in  the  work  so  entitled  who  lisps  the  idea 
that  "beauty  will  save  the  world."  At  the  present  time  with 
Russia  under  Soviet  rule  and  busy  with  its  Five  Year  Plan,  it 
is  difficult  to  forecast  the  future  of  national  culture  there. 

AMERICAN  CULTURE  AN  ASPIRATION 

American  culture  is  at  least  an  aspiration  and  may  be  spoken  of 
as  something  that  is  yet  to  come.  In  some  ways,  it  bears  analogy 
to  Russian  culture  in  that  it  was  hardly  thought  of  until  the 
XVIIIth  century  and  made  no  real  beginning  until  the  next 
century  had  come.  Without  any  peasantry  at  the  bottom  or  an 
official  aristocracy  at  the  top,  America  has  led  an  average  life  in 
which  political  adjustment,  industrial  development,  and  com- 
mercial organization  have  been  uppermost  in  the  national  mind. 
The  separation  of  Church  and  State,  which  allowed  the  individual 
to  worship  according  to  the  dictates  of  his  own  conscience,  has 
been  followed,  although  unofficially,  by  a  similar  separation  of 
Academy  and  State,  which  has  left  the  individual  to  follow  the 
dictates  of  his  own  tastes.  The  result  is  that  we  have  no  national 
religion,  but  hosts  of  religious  individuals;  no  national  culture, 
but  a  goodly  group  of  individuals  interested  in  the  intellectual 
life,  Thus  far  American  culture  has  been  something  in  excess 
of  national  mentality,  a  kind  of  dessert  one  might  or  might  not 
take  after  a  hearty  meal  of  substantial  things. 
18  The  Possessed,  tr,  Garaett,  p.  454. 


566  TYPES  OF  NATIONAL  CULTURE 

Certain  features  of  national  culture  are  discernible  in  American 
life,  if  only  in  outline.  In  a  remote  manner,  the  American  re- 
sembles the  Athenian  in  his  restless  desire  for  enlightenment  and 
the  conviction  that  a  good  life,  especially  that  of  the  citizen,  de- 
pends upon  knowledge.  The  public-school  system  might  perhaps 
be  regarded  as  reflecting  the  spirit  of  Socrates,  although  the  way 
in  which  this  is  exemplified  is  just  as  suggestive  of  Protagoras, 
who  sought  to  make  the  individual  the  measure  of  all  things. 
This  we  do  in  the  name  of  liberty  and  thus  do  we  assert  that  the 
private  citizen  has  a  perfect  right  to  poor  taste,  for  American 
aesthetics  ever  tends  to  take  this  juristic  point  of  view.  In  another 
sense,  there  is  an  analogy  between  American  culture  and  that  of 
Rome  in  the  common  practicality  of  these  two  people,  ancient 
and  modern.  Then,  in  a  manner  not  unlike  that  of  France, 
American  culture  is  dilettant  in  the  way  that  it  plays  with  ideas 
without  assuming  any  philosophical  responsibility  for  them. 
Americans  find  ideas  interesting,  but  are  not  inclined  to  mull 
over  them.  For  the  most  part,  the  culture-life  of  America  is 
Anglican  by  inheritance  and  imitation.  The  only  art  it  has  is  the 
literary  one,  although  its  commercial  architecture  is  a  sign  of 
creative  aesthetics. 

THE  MENTAL  MELTING  POT 

The  minor  dilettantism  of  the  American  mind,  which  compares 
none  too  favorably  with  the  major  dilettantism  of  Gallic  genius, 
has  arisen  apparently  from  the  excess  of  information  over  the 
power  of  invention.  Americans  desire  to  know  things,  hence 
their  thousands  of  newspapers,  hundreds  of  magazines,  and 
annual  output  of  books  on  all  subjects.  They  are  given  to  en- 
cyclopedias, digests,  and  works  of  condensed  information.  In 
addition  to  this,  they  have  a  certain  acquaintance  with  the 
ideas  of  other  nations  as  these  have  been  brought  over  by  the 
more  intellectual  immigrants.  The  condition  of  the  American 
mind  is  not  unlike  that  indicated  by  Paul  Bourget  when  he  de- 
scribed the  psychology  of  dilettantism  as  the  mind's  participation 
in  "an  infinite  fecundity  of  things"  whence  arises  a  melange 
of  ideas  and  the  "conflict  among  the  dreams  of  the  universe 


EMERSON  AS  CULTURE  PROPHET  567 

elaborated  by  diverse  races."  There  was  a  time  in  the  progress 
of  American  culture  when  some  were  inclined  to  look  to  im- 
migration as  an  intellectual  influence  and  to  feel  that  America 
might  be  able  to  synthesize  a  rich  variety  of  ideals  in  a  "  melting 
pot."  But  not  only  has  immigration  ceased,  but  the  effects  of  the 
influx  of  foreigners  in  the  past  has  fashioned  more  of  a  witch's 
cauldron  than  a  melting  pot.  A  nation's  intellect  can  endure  and 
make  good  use  of  the  ideas  that  come  from  some  other  nation,  as 
Rome  was  nourished  by  Greek  culture,  but  when  a  heedless 
variety  of  ideas  is  brought  together  the  result  is  only  confusion. 
American  culture  so  far  as  it  has  proceeded  has  been  an  experi- 
ment. It  has  attempted  to  develop  culture  on  a  democratic  basis 
and  pursue  it  in  connection  with  a  life  of  activity.  Now, 
orthodox  culture  has  always  been  founded  on  aristocracy  and  a 
life  of  leisure.  The  American  ideal,  instead  of  being  the  Athenian 
one,  according  to  which  the  gods  of  intellect  quietly  surveyed  the 
world  from  the  heights  of  Olympus,  tends  to  exemplify  the 
prophecy  of  Daniel :  "  Many  shall  run  to  and  fro  and  knowledge 
shall  be  increased."  There  can  be  no  doubt'  that  the  American 
is  attempting  its  national  culture  on  this  popular  and  activistic 
basis.  The  only  possible  doubt  is  whether  such  a  new  type  of 
culture  can  so  succeed  as  to  place  America  among  the  cultured 
nations. 

EMERSON  AS  CULTURE  PROPHET 

America  had  its  culture  prophet  in  the  figure  of  Emerson, 
whose  address  The  American  Scholar  was  a  sort  of  intellectual 
declaration  of  independence.  He  thought  of  the  incipient  Ameri- 
can scholar  as  a  native  genius  educated  by  Nature,  by  books,  and 
by  action,  chiefly  the  first  and  the  last,  and  implied  that  the 
American  mind,  while  wanting  in  its  own  history  of  culture, 
could  draw  as  minds  in  other  nations  had  done  from  the  original 
sources  of  spiritual  life.  Then,  he  prophesied,  American  scholars 
and  not  merely  pedants  and  dilettants  will  appear.  "  We  will 
walk  on  our  own  feet,  we  will  work  with  our  own  hands,  we  will 
speak  our  own  minds.  The  study  of  letters  shall  be  no  longer 
a  name  for  pity,  for  doubt  and  for  sensual  indulgence.  The  dread 


568  TYPES  OF  NATIONAL  CULTURE 

of  man  and  the  love  of  man  shall  be  a  wall  of  defense  and  a 
wreath  of  joy  around  all.  A  nation  of  men  will  for  the  first  time 
exist,  because  each  believes  himself  inspired  by  the  Divine  Soul 
which  also  inspires  all  men." 

The  intense  Americanism  of  this  noble  document  was  quite  in 
keeping  with  the  juvenile  sense  of  national  pride  peculiar  to  what 
we  might  call  the  first  period  of  American  culture.  Herein  we 
find  artless  tales  of  pioneer  life  —  the  backwoodsmen  of  Cooper, 
the  early  settlers  of  Irving,  and  the  whalers  of  Melville.  Such  is 
the  conception  of  poetry  at  the  present  time  that  one  hesitates 
to  introduce  into  its  blatant  music  the  flute-like  tones  of  Long- 
fellow's verse  or  make  any  mention  of  Foe's  perfect  technique 
in  versification.  In  like  manner,  it  seems  out  of  place  to  say  any- 
thing about  the  complacency  enjoyed  by  the  conventional  novels 
of  Howells.  For  we  have  turned  away  abruptly  from  the  naive 
and  demure  aesthetics  our  fathers  were  wont  to  enjoy.  The 
present  century  has  witnessed  the  rise  of  the  discontented  writer 
and  disorganized  artist.  America,  it  seems,  has  no  right  to  be 
self-satisfied,  still  less  to  indulge  in  the  youthful  braggadocio  of 
writers  like  Bret  Harte  and  Mark  Twain.  Ours  is  the  era  of 
disenchantment  in  which  we  find  no  more  charms  along  "  Main 
Street "  and  no  particular  merits  in  our  "  Babbitts."  In  place  of 
the  early  literature,  which  was  really  "  the  American  comedy," 
we  have  now  something  that  Dreiser  calls  "  the  American 
'tragedy."  It  remains  to  be  seen  whether  this  new  pessimism  in 
American  culture  will  be  as  productive  as  the  old  optimism.  It 
may  turn  out  later  that  this  era  of  our  discontent  will  prove  to 
have  been  but  the  transition  to  a  higher  level  of  intellectual  life 
in  America. 


CHAPTER  XXII 
THE  EASTERN  QUESTION 


THE  ORIENT  AWAKENS 

WHEN,  TOWARD  THE  CLOSE  OF  A  WORK  ON  CIVILIZATION  AND 
culture,  we  refer  to  The  Eastern  Question,  we  may 
appear  to  be  dismissing  a  great  problem  with  a  shrug 
of  the  shoulders  or  a  wave  of  the  hand.  Why,  one  may  ask,  was 
not  the  Orient  mentioned  if  not  fully  elaborated  at  the  beginning, 
and  how  can  such  a  vast  continent  with  its  antique  history  and 
diversified  races  be  compressed  into  a  single  chapter?  The 
answer  to  this  question  has  been  given  already  if  only  by  implica- 
tion —  that  it  was  not  until  late  modern  times  that  western 
civilization  felt  the  impact  of  the  East  in  any  form  save  that  of 
the  Hebrews  and  such  other  oriental  peoples  as  were  associated 
with  them.  Hence  our  western  civilization  betrays  a  Hebraic 
strain,  while  the  Mongolian,  Hindu,  Persian,  Siamese,  and  the 
like  are  not  indicated.  However,  we  do  not  intend  to  affect 
disdain  for  or  disclaim  responsibility  toward  the  gigantic  East. 
If  it  did  not  influence  Christian  civilization  while  it  was  in  the 
making,  it  is  beginning  to  bear  upon  it  now  with  a  force  which 
is  likely  to  intensify  itself  during  the  course  of  the  century. 
"  The  sun  also  rises  "  and  the  East  has  at  last  arrived.  - 

In  taking  up  the  oriental  problem,  if  we  may  so  call  it,  we  are 
conscious  of  the  fact  that  our  method  is  rather  indiscriminate. 
What  we  call  the  East  includes  more  than  its  share  of  the  earth's 
population  and  this  great  mass  is  divided  into  vast  groups  which, 
like  the  Chinese  and  Hindu,  are  decidedly  characteristic.  We 
have  been  careful  to  distinguish  the  Greek  from  the  Roman,  the 
Anglican  from  the  Continental,  and  the  American  from  the 
European,  when  these  folks  have  definite  likenesses.  How,  then, 
can  we  place  the  mask  of  the  Orient  over  the  features  of  Asiatics 
who  among  themselves  are  so  sharply  divided  and  widely  diversi- 
fied? Narrow  little  valleys  separate  our  western  peoples;  tre- 
mendous canyons  of  space  and  time,  language  and  custom  yawn 


570  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION 

between  the  Asiatic  nations.  Hence  we  feel  somewhat  con- 
science stricken  when  we  take  a  whole  continent  o£  people  with 
different  religions,  languages,  civilizations,  and  the  like  and  call 
it  "  The  East."  Yet  in  most  ways  we  are  justified. 

EAST  AND  WEST 

We  will  not  proceed  to  our  justification  by  employing  what 
has  become  a  kind  of  geographical  "  bromide "  and  thus  say 
"  East  is  East  and  West  is  West.5'  Rather  will  we  say  that,  for 
all  their  inherent  differences,  the  nations  of  the  Orient  are  all 
alike  in  being  systematically  different  from  those  of  the  western 
world.  These  differences  may  be  indicated  sharply  by  stating 
that  we  of  the  West  have  indulged  the  principle  of  progress, 
which  they  of  the  East  have  seen  fit  to  neglect,  just  as  we  have 
promoted  the  idea  of  historical  movement  and  historical  record, 
which  seem  to  have  meant  so  little  in  the  oriental  world.  The 
trends  of  civilization  that  we  have  followed  —  science  and  phi- 
losophy, politics  and  social  thought,  industry  and  economics, 
have  been  traced  out  in  the  West  since  there  was  little  indication 
of  them  in  the  East.  And  then,  sad  to  relate,  we  have  made  our 
progress  in  civilization  and  culture  by  means  of  something  by 
no  means  so  well  known  or  so  eagerly  accepted  — -  war! 

The  Near  East  is  no  stranger  to  western  thought,  for  it  has 
been  represented  quite  definitely  by  the  Turk,  with  whom,  it  is  to 
be  hoped,  we  have  learned  how  to  deal.  But  at  the  present  time 
the  Far  East,  as  also  India,  is  looming  up;  hence  it  is  well  to  look 
as  far  as  we  can  in  that  direction,  observe  what  has  been  going 
on  in  China,  and  try  to  adjust  our  vision  to  the  future.  Japan, 
like  Turkey,  is  no  such  stranger  to  us,  and  the  Japanese  may 
become  a  practical  problem  for  America  as  the  Turk  has  been 
for  Europe. 

OLD  CHINA 

The  history  of  China  has  been  incomparably  longer  than  was 
that  of  Rome,  but  how  unimportant  seems  time  when  divided 
into  such  historical  periods.  The  Chinese  records  give  a  confused 


OLD  CHINA 

account  of  the  beginning  of  things,  but  Creation  is  not  a  subject 
which  warrants  clarity.  The  first  human  being  was  Pan-ku  and 
this  Chinese  Adam,  who  was  likewise  a  Methuselah,  was  sup- 
posed to  have  lived  millions  of  years  before  the  opening  of  the 
historic  period.  After  the  passing  of  this  ageless  character  there 
appeared  the  Heavenly  Emperors  in  the  form  of  a  succession  of 
thirteen  brothers,  each  of  whom  is  said  to  have  ruled  18,000  years. 
The  next  in  the  royal,  order  were  the  Earthly  Emperors,  eleven 
brothers,  who  are  credited  with  some  sort  of  astronomical  ob- 
servation and  the  development  of  a  calendar.  The  Human  Em- 
perors, who  came  next  in  order,  consisted  of  nine  brothers  who 
divided  the  world  into  nine  countries  and  established  towns  and 
cities.  Before  anything  like  a  historical  character  was  placed  ori 
record,  there  was  a  period  of  five  dragons  and  a  number  of 
fabulous  emperors.  At  last  came  Fu  Hsi,  who  reigned  in  the 
province  of  Honan  from  2852  to  2738  B.C.  and  who  is  credited 
with  having  originated  the  law  of  marriage,  the  domestication 
of  animals,  the  Chinese  system  of  writing,  the  lute  and  the  lyre, 
as  also  the  fish  net.  Shen-nung  (2738-2705  B.C.)  appeared  next 
and  added  to  Chinese  civilization  the  art  of  husbandry  and  the 
use  of  medicinal  herbs.  Huang-Ti  (2705-2595  B.C.)  invented  the 
calendar  and  is  reputed  to  have  taught  handicraft  in  connection 
with  wood,  clay,  and  metal.1 

This  practical  era  was  followed  by  four  other  rulers,  who  led 
up  to  the  glorious  reign  of  Yao  (^.2426  B.C.),  the  democratic 
king  during  the  golden  age  of  Chinese  history.  The  Hsia  period 
(2205-1766  B.C.)  was  marked  by  certain  contributions  to  civiliza- 
tion in  the  form  of  astronomical  study,  the  establishment  of 
schools  for  nobles,  and  the  invention  of  wine.  The  Shang  period 
(1766-1122  B.C.)  was  significant  for  the  beginning  of  lyric  poetry, 
but  it  was  the  Chow  dynasty  (1122-255  B.C.)  which  began  to 
reveal  rational  civilization  and  culture.  This  significant  span  of 
years  includes  the  time  of  Lao  Tze  and  Confucius,  as  also  Mo  Tze, 
"  the  Christ  of  China."  In  536  B.C.,  the  first  written  law  code  was 
effected.  The  Chin  dynasty  (221-206  B.C.)  lasted  only  fifteen 
years  but  it  was  significant  for  having  given  its  name  "  Chin  "  to 

1  Les  mtmoircs  kistoriques  dc  Se  Ma  Tsien  traduitt  et  annotfa  par  Edouard 
Chavannes  (1905). 


572  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION 

the  country  thenceforth  known  to  the  West  as  China.  It  was  a 
period  of  centralized  power,  gold  and  copper  coins  came  into  use 
as  the  medium  of  exchange,  the  brush  pen  was  invented,  and  the 
art  of  calligraphy  came  into  being. 

THE  SONS  OF  HAN 

The  Han  dynasty  (200  B.C.-200  A.D.),  which  has  given  rise  to 
the  expression  "Sons  of  Han"  to  describe  the  Chinese,  was 
marked  by  the  appearance  of  a  Chinese  history  written  by  Sze- 
ma-chien,  a  Chinese  dictionary  by  Hsu  Shen,  and  the  opening  of 
the  Imperial  Library.  The  period  of  the  Three  Kingdoms  (220- 
589  AJ>.)  was  one  of  incessant  war  but  did  not  prevent  the  ap- 
pearance of  poets  and  savants  such  as  the  Seven  Scholars  of 
Chang-an.  In  the  succeeding  period  (589-618)  the  knowledge 
of  the  world  was  made  under  seven  heads:  i)  Classics;  2)  His- 
tory; 3)  Philosophy  and  Military  Tactics;  4)  Poetry;  5)  Arts 
and  Sciences;  6)  Buddhism;  7)  Taoism.  The  Tang  dynasty 
(618-907)  covered  a  period  of  Chinese  culture.  For  the  first 
time  in  China's  history,  the  intelligentsia  of  north  and  south  co- 
operated in  the  cultural  movement,  making  it  possible  for  the 
Chinese  to  claim  that  in  the  VHIth  century  theirs  was  the  most 
cultured  land  under  the  sun.  The  Sung  period  (960-1280)  was 
an  age  of  refinement  which  produced  some  famous  poets  and 
painters,  while  the  Yuan  period  (1280-1368)  was  the  age  of 
Kublai  Khan,  the  Mongol  leader.  Other  periods  followed,  but 
it  is  the  Ching  dynasty  (1644-1911)  which  interests  us  by  reason 
of  its  relation  to  the  West. 

CONTACTS  OF  EAST  AND  WEST 

The  earliest  contact  between  East  and  West  is  not  on  record, 
but  doubtless  it  antedates  the  Christian  era.  There  are  annals  of 
Chinese  emperors  wherein  the  doings  of  the  Romans  are  men- 
tioned. On  the  other  side  of  Asia,  the  Hebrew  prophet  Isaiah 
cast  Messianic  glances  in  more  than  one  direction  and  appears 
to  have  scanned  China,  "the  land  of  Sinim."  "Behold,  these 
shall  come  from  far;  and,  lo,  these  from  the  north  and  from  the 


CONTACTS  OF  EAST  AND  WEST  573 

west;  and  these  from  the  land  of  Sinim."2  Horace,  certain 
poets  of  the  Augustan  period,  Pliny,  and  Ptolemy  refer  to  China 
and  its  people  under  the  names  of  "  Sin,"  "  Chin,"  "  Sinae,"  and 
"  Seres."  In  the  Ilnd  century  A.D.,  Marinus,  the  Tyrian  geog- 
rapher, knew  China  under  the  name  of  "  Chin."  In  the  Vlth 
century,  the  Greek  monk  Cosmos  Indicopleutes  referred  to  the 
land  as  though  his  reader  knew  just  where  China  was;  in  the 
Vllth  century,  the  Byzantine  Theophylactus  Simocatta  refers  to 
the  Chinese  as  Taugas. 

,  The  interest  in  the  East  was  an  economic  one  and  might  be 
symbolized  by  the  term  "  silk,"  or  ser  as  the  Mongolians  called 
it.  The  name  came  into  Greece  and  Rome  along  with  the  product 
itself  and  thus  we  observe  that  Virgil,  Horace,  Strabo,  and  others 
made  mention  of  the  Seres  or  Sericae.  But  silk  was  not  all  that 
the  Westerners  procured  from  China,  for  there  were  other  de- 
sirable things,  such  as  furs  and  iron,  and  it  was  Chinese  iron 
rather  than  the  more  luxurious  product  which  appealed  to 
Pliny.  The  silk  industry  in  China  dates  as  far  back  as  the 
Empress  Huang-ti  (c.  2640  B.C.),  who  encouraged  the  cultivation 
of  the  mulberry  tree  and  the  rearing  of  silkworms.  It  is  said  that 
the  eggs  of  the  silkworm  and  seeds  of  the  mulberry  tree  were 
carried  into  India  by  a  Chinese  princess  (419  A.D.),  who  secreted 
them  in  the  lining  of  her  headdress.  From  the  Ganges  valley, 
the  silkworm  seems  to  have  moved  into  Khotam,  Persia,  and 
Central  Asia,  finally  to  arrive  at  Rome,  where  its  precious  product 
was  worth  its  weight  in  gold.  But  the  silkworm  in  China  was 
one  thing,  in  the  West  another,  and  it  was  a  long  time  before 
the  manufacture  of  silk  was  achieved.  However,  there  were  two 
Persian  monks  who  had  lived  in  China,  where  they  had  learned 
the  art  of  silk-making.  These  monks  came  to  Constantinople 
and  told  the  emperor  of  their  talent  but  confessed  to  their  lack 
of  raw  material  for  the  art,  whereupon  they  repaired  to  China 
and  in  550  returned  to  the  Byzantine  capital  with  a  supply  of 
silkworm's  eggs  duly  concealed  in  a  bamboo  cane.  It  was  thus 
that  the  West  learned  this  valuable  form  of  manufacture, 

Chinese  salesmanship  two  thousand  years  ago  was  nothing  in 
comparison  with  this  business  art  at  the  present  time,  yet  business 

2  is.  XLIX,  12. 


574  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION 

trips  were  not  unknown.  According  to  the  Chinese  records,  the 
Emperor  Wu  Ti  of  the  Han  dynasty  sent  a  certain  envoy  named 
Chang  Chien  to  Bactria,  Parthia,  and  Mesopotamia.  Leaving 
China  in  138  B.C.,  this  agent  returned  twelve  years  later  with  tales 
to  relate  about  the  regions  round  the  Oxus  and  Jaxertes  rivers. 
He  reported  that  he  had  seen  Chinese  goods  in  Bactrian  markets 
—  clothing  and  bamboo  sticks,  imported  from  Szechwan  and 
Yunan  through  India  and  Afghanistan.  This  trip  marks  the 
beginning  of  China's  trade  with  the  West.  It  is  said  further  of 
this  Chang  Chien  that  upon  his  return  from  his  long  trip  he 
brought  back  with  him  the  grapevine  and  alfalfa  and  had  such 
seeds  as  those  of  the  walnut,  hemp,  and  grape  hidden  upon  his 
person. 

The  wandering  of  this  Chinese  "  salesman  "  bears  certain  but 
yet  remote  resemblances  to  the  more  classical  journey  of  Ulysses. 
Chang  Chien  and  his  hundred  companions  were  captured  by  the 
Huns.  In  vain  he  tried  to  escape;  he  therefore  settled  down  to 
the  extent  of  taking  a  Hun  wife  and  begetting  a  son,  yet  with  an 
eye  ever  cast  eastward.  When  the  Huns  were  busy  fighting 
another  tribe,  he  escaped  without  his  family  and  with  only  one 
of  his  hundred  followers.  Before  reaching  home,  Chang  Chien 
had  to  endure  capture  by  a  Tatar  tribe,  but  at  last  he  did  effect 
his  long-delayed  return  and  in  quite  the  modern  spirit  wrote  an 
account  of  his  perilous  journey.  Not  only  did  this  business  trip 
enrich  the  experience  of  this  Chinese  entrepreneur,  but  it  won 
him  the  title  of  "  Road  Opener."  In  104  B.C.,  the  Chinese  general 
Li  Kuang-li  fared  forth  with  a  larger  force  on  a  different  mission, 
since  his  purpose  was  to  avenge  the  murder  of  the  Chinese  en- 
voys at  Ferghana.  Before  he  returned,  this  Mongolian  militarist 
had  entered  into  diplomatic  relations  with  Parthia  and  even 
sent  an  envoy,  Kan  Ying,  as  far  west  as  the  Syrian  border  of  the 
Roman  Empire. 

WESTERNERS  Go  EAST 

The  overtures  of  the  West  to  the  East  were  not  quite  so 
theatrical  Chinese  records  of  196  A.D.  make  mention  of  an  envoy 
from  the  Emperor  Marcus  Aurelius  and  there  is  an  astronomical 


WESTERNERS  GO  EAST  575 

treatise  said  to  have  been  brought  to  China  from  somewhere  in 
the  Roman  Empire.  In  166  A.D.,  the  records  are  to  the  effect 
that  King  An  Tun,  said  to  be  the  Emperor  Antoninus,  sent  a 
mission  to  the  Chinese.  Some  contemporary  Orientals  are  of 
the  opinion  that  the  emissary  in  question  may  have  been  none 
other  than  his  nephew,  none  other  than  Marcus  Aurelius  An- 
toninus, who  may  have  wished  to  acquire  eastern  wisdom  and 
substitute  it  for  Greek  philosophy,  but  it  is  doubtful  whether  this 
Roman  Stoic  would  extend  his  investigations  to  such  length. 
After  a  lapse  of  some  three  centuries  in  a  period  of  history  when 
centuries  did  not  mean  much,  China  had  the  advantage  of  enter- 
taining emissaries  from  Fu-lin,  or  Constantinople.  Nestorian 
missionaries  followed  during  the  reign  of  Tang  Tai  Tsung 
(627-650)  and  were  established  under  imperial  patronage.  But 
the  exchange  of  cultures  was  not  confined  to  the  silk  industry 
and  diplomacy.  It  assumed  the  more  prosaic  form  of  paper  and 
block  type. 

The  art  of  making  paper  came  westward  in  a  rather  circum- 
stantial manner.  There  were  Arabian  merchants  who  had  en- 
tered in  business  relations  with  the  Chinese  and  during  a  battle 
between  squads  of  the  two  nations  the  Arabs  managed  to  take 
some  Chinese  prisoners.  Now  certain  of  these  soldiers  were 
none  the  less  printers,  or  were  familiar  with  the  art  of  paper- 
making,  and  communicated  the  same  to  their  Arabian  con- 
querors. Paper-making  reached  Europe  through  Spain,  where 
Arabs  and  Europeans  were  thinking  of  something  other  than  this 
useful  art-industry.  Block  printing  on  paper  dates  back  to 
593  A.0*  in  China,  The  development  of  the  art  was  so  slow, 
however,  that  it  was  not  until  the  Xth  century  that  a  certain 
Feng  Tao  struck  off  the  first  book  in  modern  form.  The  oldest 
printed  book  now  in  existence,  one  of  the  many  precious  things 
in  the  British  Museum,  is  in  the  Korean  language.  In  the  year 
932,  or  exactly  one  thousand  years  ago,  all  the  Confucian  classics 
were  printed  in  book  form  by  order  of  the  Chinese  government, 

In  addition  to  these  more  material  exchanges  of  civilization 
there  was  the  religious  relationship  promoted  by  the  Nestorian 
missionaries  already  mentioned.  Their  arrival  in  China,  dated 
at  635,  was  made  manifest  by  a  tablet  or  monument  erected  in 


THE  EASTERN  QUESTION 

781  and  discovered  in  1625  at  Sian  in  Shensi  province.  According 
to  this  source,  a  certain  A-lo-peu  (Raban  or  Ruben)  as  well  as 
others  reached  China  and  translated  the  Bible  into  Chinese. 
Those  were  the  days  of  toleration,  and  the  Emperor  Tai  Tsung 
received  representatives  of  all  religious  faiths,  including  Bud- 
dhists, Parsees,  Manicheans,  as  well  as  these  Nestorians.  Likewise 
were  there  guests  from  various  nations,  including  the  Japanese, 
Koreans,  Tibetans,  Tatars,  and  Annamese.  The  Chinese  court 
was  a  veritable  culture  center  and  hither  came  envoys  from 
the  caliphs  of  Omar  and  Othman  and  the  Byzantine  emperor 
Theodosius. 

The  rise  of  the  Mongols  shows  us  what  the  Chinese  Empire 
was  and  suggests  what  it  might  become  again  in  the  future  if  it 
could  produce  another  Jenghiz  Khan  (c.i  155-1227).  Under  the 
leadership  of  this  Tatar  leader,  China  extended  its  already  large 
borders  and  spread  its  sway  from  the  Pacific  Ocean  to  central 
Europe,  so  that  northern,  central,  and  western  Asia,  to  say 
nothing  of  southern  Russia  and  the  lower  Danube  land,  was 
under  Mongol  sway.  The  sons  of  Jenghiz  were  no  less  ag- 
gressive, for  they  advanced  their  regime  in  Poland,  Hungary, 
Croatia,  Dalmatia,  Serbia,  and  Bulgaria.  To  be  sure,  they  were 
beaten  back  by  western  force  and  retained  only  Russia,  which 
paid  tribute  to  the  house  of  Khan  until  1480.  This  is  just  so 
much  history  and  has  been  written  numerous  times,  but  it  is 
worth  while  reflecting  upon  what  China  might  do  if  it  were  to 
resume  its  one-time  militarism  under  the  auspices  of  modern 
warfare.  The  West,  especially  Europe,  still  persists  in  the  assump- 
tion that  all  civilization  and  culture,  not  to  mention  industry 
and  warfare,  are  its  own  prerogatives.  But  the  West  is  not  what 
it  was,  so  that  in  time  it  may  have  to  come  to  an  understanding 
with  the  East. 

THE  RISE  OF  ORIENTALISM 

From  the  Xlllth  century  to  the  present  time,  the  East  has  been 

a  source  of  fascination  for  the  West,  which  has  lingered  over  the 

travel  tales  of  Friar  John  Piano  Carpini,  Friar  Odoric  the  Bo- 

-  temian,  William  of  Rubirw|ii»is,  Ibn  Batata  the  Moor,  and  Marco 


Ewiiiff  Galloway,  N.  F. 

THE  GREAT  WALL  OF  CHINA,  BUILT  ABOUT  214  B.C. 
Every  hundred  yards  the  wall  is  fortified  with  a  tower. 


TEMPLE  OF  CONFUCIUS,  PEKINO,  CHINA 


THE  RISE  OF  ORIENTALISM  577 

Polo  of  Venice.3  Still  another  and  later  popular  Orientalist  was 
Sir  John  de  Mandeville.  Shakespeare  had  heard  o£  Salamis  and 
in  Othello  we  hear  an  echo  from  its  streets.  Coleridge,  after 
reading  Marco  Polo's  account  of  the  summer  palace,  had  a  vision 
of  the  "  stately  pleasure  dome  where  Alph  the  sacred  river  ran, 
through  caverns  measureless  to  man."  After  Marco  Polo,  the 
first  information  in  written  words  appears  in  the  reports  of  the 
Jesuit  missionaries  after  they  had  gained  access  to  China.  A 
sample  of  a  French  missionary's  letter,  printed  in  1589,  is  found 
in  the  following:  "From  the  most  glorious  and  right  royal  isle 
of  Japan  and  then  straight  from  the  uttermost  end  of  the  earth, 
to  wit:  from  the  most  mighty  empire  of  the  Chinas."  Between 
1596  and  1598  the  first  Chinese  portraits  were  brought  to  Holland, 
and  French  engravers  in  the  time  of  Louis  XlVth  printed  from 
the  Dutch  plates  and  found  no  little  market  for  their  pictures. 
Treatises  about  China  soon  followed.  In  1655  Novus  Atlas 
Sinensis  de  Martina  Martini  appeared  in  Vienna  and  had  a  wide 
circulation.  This  geographical  work  exercised  a  considerable 
influence  over  Athanasius  Kircher,  who  published  a  copiously 
illustrated  work  on  China. 

But  pictures  or  books  of  illustrations  were  not  the  only  reflec- 
tions of  the  East  upon  the  mind  of  the  West.  In  1662  Pere 
Ignatius  da  Costa  translated  the  Ta  Hsio  or  Great  Doctrine  and 
published  it  in  China  under  the  title  of  Sapientia  Sinica,  with 
woodcuts  in  the  Chinese  style.  The  work,  by  the  way,  was  a 
discussion  of  Chinese  philosophy  generally,  with  special  reference 
to  Confucius  and  his  social  system  of  morals.  In  1673  came 
Intorcetta's  translation  of  Chung  Yung,  which  contained  a  life 
of  Lao  Tze  done  in  both  Latin  and  French.  In  addition  to  this, 
the  work  expatiated  on  the  Tao,  or  logos  or  ratio  or  way  of  this 
same  Lao  Tze,  The  first  translation  of  the  Analects  of  Confucius 
was  made  by  P&re  Philippe  in  1687,  The  Analects  consists  of 
twenty  chapters  of  Confucian  philosophy  wherein  the  Jen,  or 
human  relationship,  receives  much  stress.  The  religious  feature 
of  this  staid  work  appears  in  the  idea  that  as  institutions  depend 
upon  morals,  so  morals  depend  upon  beliefs.  At  the  same  time, 

8  The  Book,  of  Sir  Marco  Polo,  tr.  Yule  (1903);  Jordanus,  The  Wonders  oj 
the  East,  tr.  Yule  (1863). 

S.T.— - 38 


THE  EASTERN  QUESTION 

the  Chinese  sage  did  not  fail  to  stress  the  domestic  ideal  for 
which  China  is  famous,  saying, "  When  all  families  are  in  proper 
order,  all  will  be  right  with  the  world."  4  Further  appreciation 
of  the  Chinese  on  the  part  of  the  French  is  observable  in  the 
work  of  Pere  Lecomte,  Das  heutige  Sina  (1686).  "When 
Heaven  distributed  the  gifts  of  nature,  it  gave  to  the  French 
valor  and  the  science  of  war,  to  the  Dutch  shrewdness  in  trade, 
to  the  English  the  art  of  navigation,  to  the  Chinese  skill  in  gov- 
ernment, but  to  themselves,  the  Siamese,  wisdom  and  under- 
standing." 5 

FRENCH  INTEREST  IN  CHINA 

French  interest  in  China  was  so  marked  in  the  XVIIIth  century 
that  New  Year's  Day,  1801,  was  celebrated  in  the  French  court 
with  festivities  of  a  Chinese  character.  Under  Chinese  influence, 
the  stateliness  of  the  Gothic  and  the  formalism  of  the  classic 
Renaissance  were  forgotten  and  French  architecture  assumed 
the  Rococo  form.  This  style,  itself  implicit  in  the  Baroque,  in- 
vited a  relaxation  of  forms,  the  introduction  of  subtle  lines,  and 
a  fondness  for  pale  tones.  The  lighter  arts  likewise  betrayed  the 
oriental  influence  in  the  enthusiasm  over  porcelain  and  shimmer- 
ing Chinese  silk  —  feau  de  chine.  The  Chinese  garden  became 
popular;  Louis  La  Comte.,  who  in  1696  wrote  on  the  subject, 
was  widely  read.  During  the  period  1750-1759,  Chambers, 
architect  to  the  king  of  England,  produced  the  first  Chinese 
garden  in  the  West.  In  order  to  study  the  subject,  he  made  two 
journeys  to  China,  and  in  addition  to  his  new  departure  in 
landscape  gardening  wrote  his  Essay  on  Oriental  Gardening, 
The  Chinese  garden  which  Chambers  developed  in  Kew  Garden 
for  the  Duke  of  Kent  became  the  model  for  others,  and,  when 
taken  up  in  France,  became  known  as  "  Chinese-English.51 
Replicas  of  the  pagoda  in  this  garden  were  built  in  Het  Loo, 
Holland,  at  Chanteloup  on  the  Loire,  and  in  the  Englischer 
Garten  in  Munich. 

But  the  thoughts  as  well  as  the  things  of  China  made  some 
appeal  to  Europe,  as  can  be  seen  in  the  political  philosophy 

4  Cf.  Reichwein,  China  and  Europe  (1925)*  5  Of.  tit,,  p,  309. 


EASTERN  AND  WESTERN  THOUGHT        579 

of  Francois  Quesnay.  Quesnay  happened  to  meet  in  Paris  a 
Chinaman  named  Ko,  from  whom  he  learned  something  about 
the  man's  homeland.  The  Chinese  conception  of  State  and 
citizenship  appealed  to  Quesnay  and  his  political  economy  seems 
to  indicate  some  intellectual  importations  from  the  East.  He 
commented  upon  the  Analects  of  Confucius,  saying,  "  They  all 
deal  with  good  government,  virtue,  and  good  works;  this  col- 
lection is  full  of  principles  and  moral  sentences  which  surpass 
those  of  the  Seven  Sages  of  Greece."  This  Quesnay  goes  on  to 
add,  in  Despotism e  de  la  Chine,  "  It  is  only  the  method  of  the 
Chinese  doctrine  which  should  serve  as  the  model  for  all  States." 
His  .pupil  Mirabeau  shared  his  enthusiasm  for  Confucius  and, 
speaking  at  the  funeral  of  Quesnay,  he  said,  "  The  whole  teach- 
ing of  Confucius  aimed  at  restoring  to  human  nature  that  first 
radiance  which  it  had  received  from  Heaven  and  which  had 
become  obscured  by  ignorance  and  passion.  He  therefore  ex- 
horted his  countrymen  to  obey  the  Lord  of  Heaven,  to  honor 
and  fear  him,  to  love  their  neighbors  as  themselves,  to  overcome 
their  inclinations,  never  to  make  passion  the  measure  of  action 
but  to  subject  it  to  reason,  and  not  to  do  or  think  or  say  anything 
contrary  to  reason." 

The  XVIIIth  century,  especially  in  France,  seemed  susceptible 
to  oriental  influence;  the  age  was  weary  of  its  own  civilization 
and  sought  something.  In  this  case  it  was  really  the  old,  yet  the 
East  served  as  a  novelty  and  provided  a  step  back  toward  nature. 
We  observe  this  in  Voltaire's  oft-quoted  maxim  that  wisdom 
and  happiness  come  from  a  cultivation  of  the  garden,  but  we 
feel  the  force  of  it  more  fully  in  Rousseau's  excessive  enthusiasm 
for  what  he  called  nature.  This  has  already  received  notice  and 
needs  no  repetition.  However,  we  may  observe  that  the  Chinese 
who  have  become  acquainted  with  this  Gallic  genius  are  in- 
clined to  find  his  historical  prototype  in  their  ancient  culture. 

EASTERN  AND  WESTERN  THOUGHT 

His  sentiments  sound  somewhat  like  an  echo  from  the  writings 
of  Lao  Tze,  although  there  is  no  indication  that  Rousseau  was 
influenced  by  the  Chinese  sage  whose  writings  had  yet  to  see 


5ga  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION 

the  light  o£  western  translation.  There  is,  however,  some  re- 
semblance between  the  intellectual  nihilism  of  the  early  oriental 
writer  and  the  more  hectic  naturalism  o£  the  late  western  one, 
so  much  so  that  Chinese  students  who  have  adopted  European 
culture  are  inclined  to  press  the  analogy.  The  Tdo  Teh  King, 
written  by  Lao  Tze,  advocated  a  retreat  from  the  civilization  of 
his  day,  the  sixth  century  B.C.  But  that  was  not  all,  since  this 
Chinese  Rousseau,  as  we  might  call  him,  seems  to  have  favored 
a  flight  from  all  reality  for  the  sake  of  finding  peace  in  a  kind 
of  mystical  nothingness.  He  shows  the  endless  attraction  of 
nonexistence  by  calling  our  attention  to  sweet  nothings  with 
which  we  are  already  familiar.  The  Tao  is  like  the  emptiness 
of  a  jug,  like  the  empty  space  in  a  wheel  where  the  axle  turns; 
it  is  the  charming  hollowness  of  a  door  or  window  in  a  house. 
The  jug  serves  as  a  container,  the  wheel  turns,  and  both  door 
and  window  perform  their  functions  of  ventilation  and  illumina- 
tion simply  because  they  are  not,  because  of  their  sublime  empti- 
ness.6 This,  however,  is  not  romanticism  and  is  not  likely  to 
appeal  to  the  Rousseauan;  rather  is  it  a  nihilism  in  which  all 
western  cultures  would  be  swallowed  up. 

The  intellectual  entente  of  East  and  West  was  strengthened 
by  the  influence  of  Goethe,  for  he  also  appears  to  have  felt  the 
appeal  of  the  Chinese  mind.  Certain  European  scholars,  pri- 
marily Von  Biedermann,7  are  of  the  opinion  that  the  oriental 
influence  was  sufficiently  direct  to  have  contributed  to  the  sources 
of  Goethe's  play  Elenor.  What  had  Goethe  to  say  about  the 
question?  In  his  diary,  January  10,  1781,  there  is  a  note  to  the 
effect  that  he  was  reading  A  Detailed  Description  of  the  Chinese 
Empire  by  Du  Halde  and  had  come  across  a  play  and  a  story 
which  interested  him.  This  play  was  The  Little  Orphan  of  the 
House  of  Chao*  On  September  4,  1817,  according  to  the  diary, 
Goethe  read  another  Chinese  play,  An  Heir  in  His  Old  Age,  and 
described  it  as  a  remarkable  piece  of  work.  In  his  old  age  he 
confessed  to  being  impressed  by  certain  Chinese  poems  which 
had  been  translated  into  French;  and  toward  the  close  of  his 
life,  as  we  observe  from  his  conversations  with  Eckermann, 
January  31,  1827,  he  said:  "I  see  more  and  more  that  poetry  is 

6  Tdo  Teh  King,  tr,  Lcggc,  Ch,  4,  p.  n.  7  Goethe-Forschungcn  (1879)* 


THE  STUDY  OF  CHINESE  LITERATURE     581 

a  common  possession  of  mankind.  The  expression  'national 
literature  '  does  not  mean  much  now.  The  age  of  '  world  litera- 
ture' is  at  hand  and  every  one  should  endeavor  to  hasten  its 
coming."  But  all  such  literary  enthusiasm  for  the  East  was 
little  more  than  so  much  exoticism;  we  may  liken  it  to  Europe's 
interest  in  China's  silk.  The  more  direct  contact  through  litera- 
ture, commerce,  and  politics  was  yet  to  come. 

THE  STUDY  OF  CHINESE  LITERATURE 

The  exact  knowledge  of  Chinese  literature  dates  from  the  days 
of  James  Legge  (1815-1897),  whose  thirty  years  as  a  missionary 
in  China,  whatever  it  may  have  meant  to  the  Chinese,  resulted 
in  the  translation  of  the  Chinese  classic  nine  volumes  (1861- 
1886).  Legge  appeals  to  the  Chinese  as  a  man  with  missionary 
prejudices  but  they  feel  indebted  to  him  for  the  way  he  gave 
publicity  to  their  esteemed  literature.  The  volumes  in  question 
consist  of  the  Five  Classics,  or  the  King,  and  the  Four  Books, 
or  the  Shu,  containing  the  Analects  of  Confucius,  The  Great 
Learning,  The  Doctrine  of  the  Mean,  and  The  Boo^  of  Mencius. 
In  addition  to  these  authoritative  works,  Legge  translated  the 
teachings  of  Mo  Tze,  which  are  supposed  to  draw  a  spiritual 
line  parallel  to  that  of  Christianity  before  the  latter  was  in 
existence,  selected  parts  of  Yang  Chu,  and  various  prose  poems. 
The  classics  mentioned  are  embodied  in  The  Sacred  Booths  of 
the  East,  edited  by  F.  Max  Miiller. 

Since  we  are  seeking  to  indicate  the  intellectual  lines  extended 
between  West  and  East,  we  may  note  that  America  as  well  as 
Europe  came  to  feel  the  fascination  of  the  Orient  and  to  feel 
that  the  cradle  of  the  human  race  might  still  be  of  interest  to 
the  mature  men  of  the  West.  Emerson,  who  so  often  indulged 
his  sense  of  intellectual  irresponsibility,  was  in  possession  of  cer- 
tain translations  which  Legge  had  made.  He  read  The  Eoo\ 
of  Poetry  and  dabbled  in  certain  secondary  sources  of  Chinese 
wisdom.  In  1868,  when  the  Chinese  minister  visited  Boston, 
Emerson  made  a  speech  characterized  by  a  graceful  gesture 
toward  the  East;  "  China  interests  us  at  this  moment  in  a  point 
of  politics.  I  am  sure  that  the  gentlemen  around  me  bear  in 


582  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION 

mind  the  bill  .  .  .  requiring  that  candidates  for  public  offices 
shall  first  pass  examinations  on  their  literary  qualifications  for 
the  same.  Well,  China  has  preceded  us  as  well  as  England  and 
France  in  this  essential  correction  of  a  reckless  usage,  and  the  like 
high  esteem  of  education  appears  in  China  in  social  life  to  whose 
distinctions  it  is  made  an  indispensable  passport"  The  Con- 
fucian realism  with  all  its  staid  talk  about  education,  family  life, 
and  politics  was  far  from  intriguing  the  genius  of  the  Concord 
sage,  who  preferred  ideas  that  were  incapable  of  exact  statement 
and  direct  application.  Hence  it  was  Lao  Tze  with  his  dumb- 
founding doctrine  of  the  Tao  rather  than  the  homely  Confucius 
who  appealed  to  Emerson. 

Emerson  maintained  his  role  of  "Greek  Yankee"  and  de- 
scended just  far  enough  into  the  vasty  deeps  of  the  Spirit  to  look 
like  an  American  Buddhist,  but  he  was  not  so  adept  in  the  part 
of  a  mandarin.  His  oriental  thought  seems  to  have  passed 
through  Athens  and  undergone  a  change  of  attire.  "  As  we  go 
back  before  the  light  of  tradition  comes  in,  the  veil  drops.  .  .  . 
All  tends  toward  the  mysterious  East.  .  .  .  From  the  time  of 
the  first  dispersion  of  the  human  family  to  the  rise  of  the  Greeks, 
everything  in  the  history  of  man  is  obscure  and  we  think  our- 
selves fortunate  if  we  can  write  in  broad  lines  the  fate  of  a 
dynasty."  s  Now,  that  which  drew  the  intellectual  emotions  of 
Emerson  toward  the  East,  which  he  did  not  for  a  moment  un- 
derstand, was  his  own  doctrine  of  the  "  OversouL"  The  con- 
ception of  spiritual  emanation  to  which  we  human  beings  owe 
our  existence  and  enlightenment  made  an  original  appeal  to 
Emerson,  since  it  delivered  him  from  logic  and  action.  It  is  not 
to  be  wondered  at  that  he  was  inclined  to  see  the  exemplification 
of  this  sentiment  in  the  original  gropings  of  the  oriental  mind 
represented  so  strangely  by  both  Buddhism  and  T&oism, 

ORIENTAL  PESSIMISM 

The  oriental  idea  in  Buddhistic  and  other  forms  has  made 
appeal  to  some  of  the  more  delicious  minds  in  Europe  and 
America.  In  1879  Edwin  Arnold  sought  to  popularize  Buddhism 

8  Cj.  Carpenter,  Emerson  and  Asia  (1930). 


ORIENTAL  PESSIMISM  583 

through  his  work  The  Light  of  Asia.  In  the  present  century, 
the  appeal  of  the  East  has  been  felt  by  H.  A.  Giles,  Witter 
Bynner,  Amy  Lowell,  Ezra  Pound,  Arthur  Waley,  Eugene 
O'Neill,  John  Hall  Wheelock,  and  others.  Among  students  of 
Chinese  literature  we  find  I.  R.  Richards,  Irving  Babbitt,  and 
Arthur  Hummel.  A  much  more  profound  sympathy  for  the 
East  was  felt  in  the  XlXth  century,  when  popular  Orientalism 
was  not  so  fashionable.  We  have  mentioned  Goethe  as  a  modern 
who  found  a  motif  in  some  bit  of  Chinese  literature  but  we 
should  not  harbor  the  impression  that  there  was  anything  oriental 
in  the  sense  of  suffering  expressed  in  The  Sorrows  of  Werther 
and  Torquato  Tasso.  Goethean  grief  was  far  from  being  a  bor- 
rowed emotion  and  the  subject  of  it  did  not  have  to  look  abroad 
for  sorrow.  Hence  we  may  understand  that  he  spoke  for  himself 
when  he  said,  "  Some  god  gave  me  power  to  tell  how  I  suffer  — 
Gab  mir  ein  Gott  zu  sagen  wie  ich  leide" 

In  the  case  of  Schopenhauer,  whose  pessimism  competed  with 
the  worst  forms  of  Asiatic  despair,  the  case  is  not  so  clear.  In 
his  major  work,  The  World  as  Will  and  Idea,  Schopenhauer 
refers  sympathetically  to  the  Bhagauad  Gita*  makes  a  rather 
unconvincing  comment  on  the  doctrine  of  the  "  Gunas  "  in  the 
Brahmanas™  and  specializes,  we  might  say,  in  the  objective 
idealism  of  the  Upanishads^  This  is  in  connection  with  the 
principle  of  Vedanta,  whereby  the  disciple  of  that  philosophical 
faith  is  led  to  identify  himself  with  the  world  and  the  world  with 
himself  according  to  the  maxim  "  That  thou  art  —  tat  tvam  a$i" 
Schopenhauer's  notion  was  that  each  little  fretful  will  is  but  an 
expression  of  the  one  Will-to-Live,  which  is  hardly  what  the 
Vedanta  itself  teaches. 

The  East  made  a  more  sincere  appeal  to  the  Russian  mind, 
which  both  physically  and  psychologically  is  closer  to  the  Orient. 
Tolstoi  seems  to  avail  himself  of  both  Christian  and  Buddhistic 
sentiments  in  his  criticism  of  modern  civilization,  as  one  may 
observe  from  reading  his  spiritual  autobiography,  My  Religion. 
Dostoievsky,  who  to  his  sorrow  knew  the  Siberian  section  of 
Asia,  falls  quite  naturally  into  Buddhistic  moods.  "  Compassion 
is  the  only  law  of  human  existence,"  he  wrote;  is  not  this  Bud- 

»  Op.  cit.,  §  54.  10  lb.,  §  59«  u  *b.,  §  63. 


THE  EASTERN  QUESTION 

dhistic?  Or,  as  a  more  palpable  example  of  the  Buddhistic,  take 
the  case  of  the  hero  in  The  Idiot.  A  mental  affliction  had  so 
operated  in  the  brain  of  "the  idiot"  that  it  had  removed  all 
desire  for  life  and  tendency  toward  evil,  so  that  he  was  placed 
almost  automatically  in  the  condition  of  Nirvana  or  something 
akin  to  it.  Now,  it  was  the  idea  of  human  life  reduced  to  a 
minimum  that  made  appeal  to  Dostoievsky,  who  was  bound  to 
prefer  Buddhistic  quietism  to  the  Tatar  sense  of  vicious  self- 
affirmation  which  he  observed  in  Russia.  But  concerning  all 
these  furtive  attempts  to  express  western  feeling  in  eastern  forms, 
we  might  suggest  that  in  most  cases  they  seem  affected.  In 
addition  to  this  it  might  be  pointed  out  that  the  Christian  feeling 
of  seriousness  and  the  Shakespearean  sense  of  sorrow,  as  expressed 
in  Hamlet,  are  adequate  unto  most  of  our  emotional  needs,  so 
that  we  need  not  borrow  any  feelings  from  the  Far  East. 

POLITICAL  APPROACHES  TO  THE  EAST 

There  have  been  political  as  well  as  literary  approaches  to  the 
East.  The  Portuguese  made  expeditions  to  China  in  1517  and 
1522,  but  upon  both  occasions  were  expelled.  In  1553,  however, 
they  succeeded  in  establishing  themselves  in  Macao  but  not 
without  political  conflict.  It  seems  that  the  king  of  Portugal, 
having  already  assumed  the  title  "  Lord  of  the  Indies,"  wanted 
something  of  the  same  sort  of  lordship  in  China.  Blood  was 
shed,  as  might  be  expected,  and  the  political  ambition  of  the 
Portuguese  frustrated;  but  they  did  succeed  in  acquiring  the 
privilege  of  trading  along  the  coastline  with  Macao  as  a  base. 

In  1543  the  Spaniards  seized  the  Philippines,  where  quite  a 
Chinese  colony  had  been  established.  Competition  set  in  and 
as  a  result  the  Spaniards  massacred  the  whole  Chinese  popula- 
tion, some  20,000  in  number.  When  more  Chinese  came 
to  the  Philippines,  the  method  of  massacre  was  repeated;  and 
then  the  Spaniards  decided  to  permit  a  colony  limited  to  6,000 
to  remain  and  carry  on  trade.  The  reaction  of  the  Chinese 
government  represented  by  the  officials  at  Canton  was  such, 
among  other  things,  as  to  create  what  they  called  a  Co-hong, 
or  group  of  thirteen  Chinese  merchants  appointed  to  arrange 


EASTERN  TRADE  585 

trade  relations  with  foreigners  and  it  was  through  the  members 
of  the  Co-hong  that  the  new  western  business  men  had  to  deal. 
In  their  business  relations,  it  may  be  remarked,  the  Chinese 
merchants  used  no  contracts  but  still  kept  faithfully  to  their  word. 
The  West  was  represented  again  in  the  East  when  Dutch 
traders  reached  the  East  Indies  in  1599.  They  came  to  Canton 
to  trade,  but  the  jealous  Portuguese  persuaded  the  Chinese  offi- 
cials to  oppose  them.  In  retaliation,  the  Dutch  sent  fifteen  ships 
to  attack  Macao  but  were  repulsed,  whereupon  they  went  to 
the  Pescadores,  only  to  be  driven  out  thence.  For  a  while  they 
established  themselves  in  Formosa,  but  the  Chinese  took  this 
from  them,  so  that  their  trade  expedition  came  to  naught  and 
for  a  century  they  accomplished  nothing  but  what  could  be  done 
by  smuggling.  With  the  beginning  of  the  Manchu  reign  in 
China  certain  western  nations,  Portuguese,  Spanish,  Dutch,  and 
Russian,  approached  the  land  more  diplomatically  in  the  form 
of  embassies  which  came  to  China  in  search  of  commercial 
privileges,12 

EASTERN  TRADE 

The  English  came  to  China  in  1620  and  seventeen  years  later 
employed  the  cannon  to  force  commercial  relations  with  their 
host.  But  apparently  little  came  of  this  militant  method  of 
mercantilism,  since  the  British  were  busy  at  home,  and  it  was 
not  until  the  XVIIIth  century  that  they  repeated  their  vigorous 
attempts  at  salesmanship*  It  was  in  the  XlXth  century,  however, 
that  the  Chinese  were  made  to  realize  how  seriously  the  western 
world  takes  the  question  of  business.  Most  of  the  British  trade 
with  China  was  in  the  hands  of  the  East  India  Company,  an 
organization  comparable  to  the  Co-hong  already  mentioned. 
The  British  business  organization  was  responsible  for  the  Opium 
War  of  1840;  it  began  to  open  the  slanting  eyes  of  the  Chinese 
to  some  of  our  western  ways.  The  opium  habit  was  spreading 
and  the  Chinese  officials  were  concerned  about  it;  they  wanted 
less  of  the  drug  rather  than  more*  When  the  Chinese  govern- 
ment forbade  the  importation  of  opium  and  destroyed  20,000 
is  Hitfoire  dn  Commerce  du  Monde  (1894). 


586  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION 

chests  of  the  drug,  the  English  government  went  to  war.  The 
conflict  came  to  an  end  with  the  unjust  treaty  of  1842,  whereby 
China  was  forced  to  pay  the  cost  of  the  war,  indemnify  Britain 
for  the  destruction  of  the  opium,  and  cede  the  city  of  Hongkong 
to  her.  Thus  arose  the  extra-territorial  jurisdiction  of  foreigners 
in  China.13 

The  relation  of  France  with  China  began  by  being  politico- 
religious,  for  the  French  were  interested  in  the  activities  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  in  China.  But  the  French,  like  the 
English,  showed  themselves  somewhat  predatory  and  the  con- 
flicting aims  of  western  missionaries  and  merchants  were  some- 
what bewildering  to  the  naive  Orientals.  France  joined  England 
in  fighting  China  in  1857,  when  Peking  was  captured  and  the  im- 
perial palace  burned.  In  ,1884  France  again  came  into  conflict 
with  China  over  Tonkin,  which  had  been  a  vassal  state  of  the 
Chinese. 

Although  an  American  ship  landed  in  China  the  year  the 
United  States  gained  its  independence  from  England,  it  was  not 
until  1844  that  a  treaty  between  the  two  nations  was  signed. 
The  American  treaty  was  the  same  in  content  as  the  British  docu- 
ment as  far  as  extra-territorial  stipulations  were  concerned,  so 
that  America  did  not  appear  much  more  friendly  to  the  Chinese 
than  Europe  had  been.  But  there  was  at  least  one  bright  spot 
in  the  dark  firmament  of  diplomacy.  It  was  found  in  the 
diplomatic  career  of  Anson  Burlingame,  whom  President  Lin- 
coln sent  as  Minister  to  China.  After  six  years  of  service,  Bur- 
lingame resigned  and  became  an  envoy  in  the  Chinese  service. 
This  Burlingame  became  the  head  of  the  Chinese  political  mis- 
sion to  various  nations;  he  advocated  a  more  just  international 
policy  concerning  China  and  insisted  upon  the  full  recognition 
of  her  sovereign  rights.  One  example  of  this  diplomacy  appears 
in  a  treaty  signed  by  Secretary  Seward  for  the  United  States  in 
1868. 

The  age-old  isolation  of  China  ended  before  the  Opium  War 
of  1840,  for  at  that  time  China  was  no  longer  left  to  herself. 
Disputes  with  France  and  England  gave  her  some  idea  of 
western  civilization,  opened  her  seaports,  and  started  foreign 

18  Soothill,  China  and  the  West  (1925). 


HOW  CHINA  AWOKE  587 

trade.  China  began  to  realize  the  importance  of  knowing  foreign 
languages  other  than  the  famous  "pigeon  English,"  as  the 
Mongolian  tongue  pronounced  "business  English."  A  school 
for  the  study  of  western  languages,  called  the  Tung  Wen  Kuan, 
was  founded,  political  reforms  inaugurated,  and  a  navy  estab- 
lished. Books  on  modern  science  were  published  and  with  the 
reform  of  1898  there  appeared  Huxley's  Evolution  and  Ethics, 
to  be  followed  by  Mill's  Logic  and  essay  On  Liberty,  Spencer's 
Sociology,  and  Adam  Smith's  Wealth  of  Nations. 

How  CHINA  AWOKE 

China  was  on  the  way  toward  Europeanization  when  its 
slumbering  nationalism  awoke  in  the  form  of  the  Boxer  Re- 
bellion. She  has  yet  to  recover  financially  from  the  heavy  drain 
upon  her  resources,  sadly  reduced  by  payments  for  indemnity. 
The  outside  world  had  never  looked  attractive  to  the  self-con- 
tained nation,  but  the  anti-foreign  feeling  reached  a  climax  at 
the  end  of  the  century.  Japan  made  war  upon  the  defeated 
China  in  1895  and  took  Formosa  as  a  trophy.  The  western 
powers  saw  similar  opportunities  and  began  to  take  advantage 
of  them.  Germany  got  Kiaochow,  England  Weiheiwei  and 
Kowloon,  and  France  Kwang  Chow-wan,  while  Russia  leased 
Port  Arthur  and  Dalny.  These  powers  became  rivals  in  the 
matter  of  mines,  railways,  and  the  like,  and  serenely  availed 
themselves  of  the  special  privileges  that  China  had  accorded 
foreigners.  At  last  China  showed  resentment  and  a  society 
called  "  The  Righteous  Harmony  Fists,"  or  "  Boxers,"  spurred 
on  by  the  empress  dowager,  attempted  to  kill  the  "  foreign 
devils."  The  result  of  the  revolt  was  defeat  for  China,  which 
had  to  pay  heavy  indemnity  for  the  death  and  destruction 
wrought  by  the  Boxers.  Although  China  was  humiliated  by  this 
experience,  she  took  heart  again  after  observing  the  victory  of 
a  sister  oriental  land,  when  Japan  defeated  Russia  in  1904, 
Chinese  students  flocked  to  Japan  to  learn  the  art  of  war  and  the 
Chinese  government  began  to  assume  a  more  modern  form. 

The  Chinese  revolution  of  1911  has  become  a  great  land- 
mark in  the  rather  eventless  history  of  that  country.  Its  leader, 


THE  EASTERN  QUESTION 

Sun  Yat-sen,  respected  the  old  culture  in  a  way  but  was  not  at 
all  averse  to  western  methods.  His  one  ambition  was  to  break 
down  the  Manchu  rule  and  establish  a  republic  upon  the  noble 
ruins.  Sun  Yat-sen  was  not  himself  successful  but  he  engendered 
a  political  spirit  which  has  become  symbolic  of  unity  and  progress 
in  China.  The  revolution  gave  the  Chinese  a  sense  of  self- 
confidence,  which,  except  in  the  case  of  Japan  or  Turkey,  had  ever 
been  lacking  in  the  oriental  world.  During  the  World  War, 
China  had  a  chance  to  breathe  and  go  about  developing  her 
industries.  Socially  and  economically,  China  was  better  off 
for  the  war  in  the  West,  although  politically  she  was  not  pre- 
pared to  meet  international  competition,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
special  aggression  of  Japan. 

In  order  to  understand  the  recent  conflict  between  China  and 
Japan,  we  must  bear  in  mind  the  sociological  differences  be- 
tween the  two  types  of  mind.  The  Japanese  rejoices  in  a 
spirit  of  all-for-one  and  aims  at  the  tight  unity  of  the  nation. 
China,  made  up  of  various  tribes  who  have  always  agreed  to 
disagree  rather  than  to  work  their  way  to  compactness  and 
unity,  stands  for  sectional  units  rather  than  national  unifica- 
tion. The  Japanese  are  a  small,  progressive,  and  aggressive 
people,  proud  of  themselves  but  the  subject  of  disdain  on  the 
part  of  China.  Their  60,000,000  inhabitants,  who  strain  the 
imperial  islands,  represent  a  population  which  has  doubled  in 
the  last  sixty  years.  The  Japanese  mind  appeals  to  the  Chinese 
as  being  rather  self-styled  or  sui  generis,  as  though  it  were 
neither  an  orientalized  nor  occidentalized  but  a  native  conscious- 
ness. Japan  rejoices  in  modernized  mills  and  factories,  a  well- 
trained  and  completely  equipped  army,  and  the  third  largest 
navy  in  the  world.  Since  the  time  that  Commodore  Perry  opened 
her  gates  by  force  in  1853,  Japan  has  progressed  by  learning 
western  lessons  and  following  western  examples  and  the  last 
seventy-five  years  have  seen  her  emerge  from  semibarbarism  to  a 
condition  of  intensive  civilization  and  authentic  political  power. 
In  her  wars,  Japan  has  known  nothing  but  success  and  she  is 
proud  of  the  way  she  has  played  the  part  of  David  with  such  a 
Goliath  as  Russia  and  China.  In  order  to  carry  on  as  a  world 
power,  Japan  must  have  foreign  trade  and  foreign  territory  much 


CHINA  AND  JAPAN  589 

after  the  manner  of  the  great  island  empire  of  the  West  —  Great 
Britain. 


CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

The  recent  Chino-Japanese  clash  in  Manchuria  was  due  to  a 
pair  of  fundamental  factors.  There  was,  first,  a  series  of  treaties 
and  agreements  forced  upon  China  whereby  Japan  established 
her  interest  and  influence  in  Manchuria  and,  second,  Chinese 
nationalism.  Japan  intends  to  extend  her  power  on  the  main- 
land, while  China  is  just  as  determined  to  deliver  herself  from 
foreign  aggression.  The  relations  between  China  and  Japan, 
never  any  too  friendly,  have  been  strained  since  1925.  In  the  first 
place,  there  is  the  mutual  hatred  between  two  oriental  nations 
dwelling  side  by  side;  and,  further,  the  more  modern  clash  in  the 
economic  field,  China  has  resolved  to  build  railways  to  com- 
pete with  the  lines  controlled  by  the  Japanese.  The  Mukden- 
Hailungcheng  railway,  built  by  the  Chinese,  runs  parallel  with 
the  Kirin-Changchun  line  managed  by  the  Japanese.  Then  there 
is  the  Mukden-Kirin  road  constructed  by  China.  The  Japanese 
state  of  mind  is  such  that  she  finds  it  intolerable  to  have  China 
conduct  her  own  ways  of  transportation. 

China  regards  Japan  with  suspicion  and  believes  that  the 
island  empire  is  indulging  in  imperialistic  plans.  China  believes 
that  her  little  Asiatic  relative  is  planning  the  conquest  of  the 
southwestern  Pacific,  including  Formosa,  the  Philippines,  the 
Dutch  East  Indies,  and  certain  islands  below  the  equator.  But 
not  bits  of  land  in  the  sea  only,  for  China  is  under  the  painful 
impression  that  Japanese  ambition  extends  to  the  mainland  also, 
where  Japan  seems  to  desire  dominion  over  eastern  Asia,  includ- 
ing Korea,  Manchuria,  and  Mongolia,  if  not  China  itself.  The 
western  powers  have  been  able  to  check  the  southern  sweep  over 
the  sea;  but  various  things,  internal  strife  in  China,  Russia's 
preoccupation  with  her  Five  Year  Plan,  and  the  economic  de- 
pression in  the  West,  seem  to  be  making  Japan's  Asiatic  ambition 
more  likely* 

As  for  China,  it  may  be  said  that  she  is  the  one  country  which 
rejoices  in  a  civilization  wherein  adjustment  by  compromise 


590  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION 

rather  than  domination  by  war  has  been  the  rule.  She  entered 
the  League  o£  Nations  whole-heartedly,  but  her  membership  in 
that  body  has  not  been  of  quite  so  much  value  to  her  as  her  own 
troops.  China,  however,  has  yet  to  become  a  militaristic  nation; 
but  a  great  destructive  power  reposes  within  her  walls.  With 
her  incomparable  numbers  and  vast  natural  resources,  she  is  a 
potential  military  power.  In  addition  to  this  implicit  aggressive- 
ness, China  is  in  a  position  to  unite  with  Russia  and  confront  the 
whole  world  with  a  vigorous  communism.  In  the  past,  China 
has  fascinated  the  imagination;  before  long  she  may  attract  the 
attention  of  the  world  in  a  more  serious  way. 

OUR  ASIATIC  RELATIVES 

Our  gesture  toward  the  "  Orient,"  as  we  call  it,  appears  un- 
usually broad  when  we  turn  from  the  Chinese  to  the  Hindus. 
From  the  historical  point  of  view  we  are  more  like  the  people  of 
India  than  they  are  like  the  Chinese.  Our  very  language  shows 
that,  for  we  and  our  Hindu  relatives  speak  the  Indo-European 
tongue,  which  has  no  sort  of  linguistic  connection  with  the  speech 
of  the  Semites  or  that  of  the  various  Mongolian  tribes.  The  an- 
cient Aryan  tongue,  divided  as  it  was  into  Sanskrit  and  Zend  and 
still  extant  in  the  modern  languages  of  India  and  Persia,  has  not 
been  lost  in  Greek,  Latin,  the  Romance  languages,  German,  Eng- 
lish, Slavic,  and  Celtic.  But  it  was  centuries  after  the  separation 
of  Asia  and  Europe  that  the  Westerners  realized  that  they  were 
talking  upon  a  more  or  less  Asiatic  basis.  There  is  also  a  kind  of 
psychological  affinity  between  Europe  and  India  in  that  the  West 
follows  mental  processes  of  analysis,  definition,  logical  reasoning, 
and  the  like,  by  no  means  so  striking  outside  the  Indo-European 
group  of  peoples.  The  Hindus  have  their  Vedanta  philosophy 
and  we  have  our  rationalism.  Then  why  is  it  we  do  not  come 
to  an  understanding  with  India  and  embrace  Brahmanism? 

The  answer  to  that  impromptu  question  is  quite  simple  when 
considered  in  historical  terms.  We,  the  people  of  the  western 
world,  having  lost  sight  of  our  Hindu  connections,  were  induced 
to  adopt  a  Hebrew  form  of  religion,  so  that  we  who  are  of  Aryan 
stock  and  Aryan  tone  rejoice  in  a  form  of  spiritual  life  peculiar 


INDIA  TODAY 

to  the  Semites,  the  Hebrews.  If  Christianity  had  remained  a 
Jewish  sect  such  as  it  was  at  the  outset  of  its  career,  our  position 
in  religion  would  be  extremely  paradoxical,  but  the  passage  of 
the  Church  to  the  Gentiles  and  the  expansion  of  Christianity  into 
a  world  religion  make  it  possible  for  us  with  good  grace  to  be 
Christians.  The  apostle  of  Hindu  faith,  as  a  persuasive  Swami, 
may  point  out  that  we  are  so  constituted  mentally  and  so  related 
historically  that  we  should  be  Vedantists,  but  long  ago  the 
famous  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles  gave  us  good  reasons  why  we 
should  become  Christians. 

A  study  of  civilization  in  taking  up  The  Eastern  Question,  as 
we  are  calling  it,  is  bound  to  interest  itself  in  India  and  the  pres- 
ent situation  in  that  overpopulous  peninsula.  We  realize  the 
historical  fact  that  the  British  put  in  an  appearance  there  more 
than  three  centuries  ago,  after  which  the  inevitable  happened. 
England  established  herself  and  for  two  centuries  has  been  in 
practical  control  of  the  land.  But  what  is  the  XXth-century 
situation  in  India?  There  was  unrest  at  the  beginning  of  the 
epoch,  but  the  coming  of  the  World  War  found  India  throwing 
her  forces  on  the  side  of  her  English  emperor  to  the  extent  of 
supplying  England  with  a  million  and  a  quarter  soldiers.  But 
it  has  been  different  since  the  armistice,  for  in  1918  certain  diffi- 
culties arose. 

INDIA  TODAY 

The  British  government  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  "  Die- 
hards  "  and  instead  of  rewarding  India  for  her  help  in  the  World 
War  it  began  to  impose  laws  and  ordinances  to  suppress  the 
nationalistic  spirit  in  India.  The  Indians,  like  the  Irish,  wanted 
home  rule  or  at  least  dominion  status  like  that  of  Canada.  It 
was  at  this  juncture  that  Gandhi  came  to  the  front.  At  heart  he 
was  a  Loyalist  and  in  political  procedure  a  Moderate.  He  had 
served  England  in  both  the  Boer  War  and  the  World  War,  so 
that  his  allegiance  to  the  crown  was  hardly  to  be  questioned.  But 
after  1918  Gandhi  became  disaffected  toward  England  because  of 
her  repudiation  of  India's  claims  for  herself  and  political  partner- 
ship with  England  Then  there  arose  certain  political  activities 


592  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION 

in  India  as  well  as  outbursts  of  the  nationalistic  spirit.    These 
were  due  to  three  major  causes : 

1.  The  enactment  of  the  Rowlatt  Acts,  which  led  to  rule  by 
martial  law  in  several  of  India's  provinces. 

2.  The  massacre  of  Amritsar,  in  1919,  of  unarmed  Hindus  gath- 
ered in  a  peaceful  meeting  to  pass  political  resolutions. 

3.  The  breach  of  promise  to  Indian  Moslems,  who  had  been 
promised  that  the  Turkish  Empire  would  not  be  dismembered 
if  they  fought  on  the  side  of  the  Allies,  even  when  they  had  to 
take  up  arms  against  their  fellow-religionists.    Gandhi  himself 
launched  the  non-cooperation  movement  against  England  and  as 
a  result  Moslems,  Sikhas,  and  Parsees,  to  say  nothing  of  Hindus, 
flocked  to  his  standard.    Gandhi  was  an  apostle  of  non-violence, 
but  in  spite  of  him  riots  and  assassinations  of  British  officials  did 
occur.   Gandhi  was  imprisoned  in  1922  and  thousands  of  Hindus 
working  under  the  Indian  National  Congress  were  jailed  and 
severely  penalized.    Due  to  his  ill  health,  Gandhi  was  released, 
whereupon  he  ordered  the  Congress  to  desist  in  their  work  of 
non-cooperation  but  to  contest  seats  in  the  Provincial  and  Fed- 
eral Assemblies.    The  Nationalists  had  no  difficulty  in  winning 
the  elections  and,  having  done  so,  attempted  to  bring  the  govern- 
ment to  a  standstill  by  obstructionist  tactics. 

HINDU  INDUSTRY 

Gandhi  is  by  no  means  as  poetical  as  Tagore,  but  he  does  not 
fail  to  project  romantic  ideals  in  industrialism.  This  he  does 
in  his  little  book  entitled  The  Wheel  of  Fortune;  by  this  he 
means  what  we  more  frankly  call  "the  machine."  But  does 
Gandhi  want  this  "Wheel  of  Fortune"  to  move  forwards  or 
backwards?  Does  he  want  to  play  a  quixotic  part  and  fight  the 
power  mill  with  the  hand  loom  and  have  the  enterprise  of  Man- 
chester or  any  other  factory  town  in  England  imitate  the  spinning 
methods  in  little  Hindu  villages?  Apparently  not,  yet  his  in- 
dustrial ideal  is  not  clearly  stated.  e<  Do  I  want  to  destroy  ma- 
chinery altogether?  .  .  .  My  answer  is:  I  would  not  weep  over 
the  disappearance  of  machinery  or  consider  it  a  calamity.  But  I 
have  no  design  upon  machinery  as  such.  What  I  want  to  do  at 


JAPANESE  PRINT,  FROM  AN  OLD  WOODCUT 


DnwAm  TttMPtv,  Mr.  ABU,  INDIA 


HINDU  INDUSTRY  593 

the  present  moment  is  to  supplement  the  production  of  yarn  and 
cloth  through  our  mills,  save  the  millions  we  send  out  of  India, 
and  distribute  them  in  our  cottages.  This  I  cannot  do  until  the 
nation  is  prepared  to  devote  its  leisure  hours  to  spinning."  14 

The  idea  of  having  the  Hindu  population  use  its  leisure  hours 
for  spinning  and  thus  supplement  the  work  of  the  machine  by 
light  hand-labor  is  perhaps  more  artistic  than  economic,  although 
in  the  spirit  of  the  economist  Gandhi  does  not  fail  to  note  that 
"  even  at  the  present  time  the  weavers  weave  more  cloth  than  the 
mills."  15  He  makes  us  think  of  William  Morris  rather  than  John 
Stuart  Mill.  His  argument  proceeds  primarily  by  analogy:  "  Why 
should  not  each  home  manufacture  its  own  cloth  even  as  it  cooks 
its  own  food  ?  " 10  Now  it  is  the  cloth  industry,  which  in  such 
a  climate  as  India's  might  seem  unimportant,  and  no  other  form 
of  manufacture  for  which  Gandhi  contends,  and  that  upon  the 
ground  that  India  should  cleave  to  the  home  loom  and  family 
stove  rather  than  resort  to  the  gigantic  mill  and  huge  bakery, 

Is  Gandhi  an  Indian  industrialist?  Apparently  not,  from  his 
rather  tepid  enthusiasm  for  the  machine.  When  he  exalts  the 
loom,  his  "  Wheel  of  Fortune,"  he  does  not  mean  something  pro- 
Hindu  and  economic  but  something  anti-British  and  political. 
He  will  fight  England  with  the  hand  loom  and  inspire  his  people 
with  the  patriotism  of  taste.  "  Will  the  nation  revise  its  taste  for 
Japanese  silk,  the  Manchester  calico  or  the  French  lace  and  find  all 
its  decoration  out  of  hand-spun  and  hand-woven  cloth?  "17  If 
it  will  do  that,  it  can  carry  out  its  program  of  non-cooperation;  it 
can  conduct  its  boycott  of  British  goods.  Hindu  industry  will 
thus  lead  to  Hindu  independence.  For,  as  Gandhi  claims,  "  there 
are  enough  weavers  and  enough  looms  in  India  to  replace  the 
whole  of  the  foreign  import  of  cloth," 18  Unlike  German  chil- 
dren, those  of  India  will  not  be  taught  to  fight  but  to  spin,  and 
the  barricade  against  British  aggression  will  be  that  of  homespun 
cloth  rather  than  barbed  wire.  Now  there  is  no  question  that 
British  policy  toward  India  has  been  one  of  complete  selfishness, 
yet  it  is  a  question  whether  this  encroachment  upon  Hindu  rights 

14  The  Wheel  of  Fortune*  pp*  14-15.  17  lb.,  p,  6. 

*'  /*„  p.  9.  1S  #„,  p.  89. 

"  /*.,  p.  24. 


594  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION 

can  be  met  by  the  naive  methods  of  industry  which  Gandhi  plans 
for  his  people. 

WHAT  DOES  INDIA  WANT? 

Just  what  does  India  want  ?  The  Hindus  answer  that  question 
with  rather  uncertain  sounds.  Apart  from  a  minimum  who  want 
the  British  status  quo  to  remain  intact,  there  are  groups  which 
appear  to  desire  this,  that,  and  the  other  sort  of  independence. 
The  most  moderate  desire  less  and  less  British  rule,  more  and 
more  Indian  independence;  but  this  is  only  a  general  sentiment, 
not  a  political  program.  The  more  ardent  Nationalists  in  India 
desire  the  status  of  dominion  government  such  as  England  ac- 
cords to  Canada.  More  radical  Hindus  seem  bent  upon  an  inde- 
pendent form  of  government  on  the  basis  of  which  they  can 
develop  a  sort  of  "  United  States  of  India."  There  are  still  more 
radical  minds  that  look  toward  some  sort  of  affiliation  with  Russia 
and  the  establishment  of  a  communistic  regime. 

What  is  India's  political  ambition?  She  appears  to  want  na- 
tionalism, and  yet  her  interests  seem  to  be  social  and  spiritual. 
These  disincline  her  toward  western  civilization  as  such,  as  well 
as  the  development  of  the  western  type  of  State  represented  by 
Japan.  Just  as  India  desires  industry  without  industrialism,  so 
she  appears  to  wish  some  sort  of  national  independence  and  unity 
without  political  nationalism.  "  Nationalism,"  says  Tagore,  "  is 
a  great  menace.  It  is  the  particular  thing  which  for  years  has  been 
at  the  bottom  of  India's  troubles.  And  inasmuch  as  we  have  been 
ruled  and  dominated  by  a  nation  that  is  strictly  political  in  its 
attitude,  we  have  tried  to  develop  within  ourselves,  despite  our 
inheritance  from  the  past,  a  belief  in  our  eventual  political 
destiny."19 

CAN  INDIA  GOVERN  HERSELF? 

Is  India  prepared  for  self-government?    The  American  Colo- 
nies were  in  1776;  Ireland  was  when  it  set  up  the  Irish  Free  State; 
but  the  case  of  India  seems  different.   Its  vast,  mixed  population 
19  Nationalism,  p,  133. 


CAN  INDIA  GOVERN  HERSELF?  595 

is  not  united  in  any  political  program,  although  the  Nationalist 
sentiment  is  the  most  popular  idea  in  the  land.  This  is  evinced 
by  the  Round  Table  Conferences  held  at  London.  At  the  first 
conference  (November,  1930),  the  representatives  consisted  of 
seventy-six  Loyalists  nominated  by  the  Viceroy  and  thirteen 
British  members.  The  Nationalists  refused  to  participate  unless 
all  political  prisoners,  including  Gandhi  and  40,000  of  his  fol- 
lowers, were  released  from  prison.  Even  at  such  a  conservative 
conference  the  spirit  of  nationalism  prevailed.  The  Hindu  dele- 
gates demanded  it  and  succeeded  in  having  the  conference  close 
with  a  pledge  of  Indian  autonomy.  Furthermore,  the  political 
prisoners  were  released.  At  the  second  Conference,  Gandhi 
was  made  the  sole  representative  of  the  Nationalists  and  put 
forth  India's  claims  for  equal  partnership  in  the  British  Com- 
monwealth of  Nations  and  a  dominion  status  like  that  of  Canada. 
Gandhi  was  given  audience  by  the  king  and  appeared  in  his 
simple  Hindu  garb  instead  of  formal  court  dress.  This  was  the 
subject  of  both  amusement  and  admiration  on  the  part  of  the 
world  generally,  which  may  not  have  understood  that  Gandhi's 
loin  cloth  was  worn  by  him  as  a  symbol  of  the  poverty  endured 
by  the  millions  whom  he  represented. 

Apparently  India  has  no  real  desire  for  a  nationalism  like  that 
of  England  in  the  West  and  Japan  in  the  East.  Her  problem  is 
to  produce  a  people,  not  a  State.  "  In  my  country,"  says  Tagore, 
"we  have  been  seeking  to  find  out  something  common  to  all 
races,  which  will  prove  their  real  unity.  No  nation  looking  for  a 
merely  political  or  commercial  basis  of  unity  will  find  such  a  solu- 
tion sufficient.  Men  of  thought  and  power  will  discover  spiritual 
unity,  will  realize  it,  and  preach  it," 20  Is  the  West  to  continue  its 
practical  leadership  in  the  world  or  will  the  East  surpass  it  with 
a  different  form  of  civilization?  As  we  have  seen,  civilization 
means  something  industrial  and  political,  scientific  and  social;  it 
means  citizen  and  machine.  The  oriental  idea  in  China  and 
India  is  something  different,  a  less  strict  and  strenuous  concep- 
tion of  civilized  life.  Should  not  the  West  study  the  East  and, 
as  it  learned  of  old  its  original  lessons  there,  try  to  learn  some 
newer  ones  ? 

w  lb<>  p.  137. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 
THE  PRESENT  OUTLOOK 


THE  SO-CALLED  PRESENT 

WHAT  WE  CALL  THE  "  PRESENT  "  IS  NOT  DETERMINED  BY 
the  calendar,  but  by  custom.  Everything  that  is  the 
object  of  perception  and  does  not  incline  us  to  indulge 
in  memory  may  be  called  "  contemporary;  "  a  "  thing  of  the  past  " 
is  not  merely  that  which  is  old,  but  that  which  is  no  longer  in 
use.  In  the  larger  sense,  then,  the  present  is  the  era  of  modern 
improvements  dating  back  nearly  a  century  and  might  be  moved 
back  to  1837,  when  the  electric  telegraph  of  Morse  came  into 
vogue.  The  dates  that  indicate  the  beginnings  of  centuries  are 
unimportant  in  themselves;  the  year  1801  does  not  compare  in 
significance  with  1815,  when  Napoleon  met  his  Waterloo,  nor 
the  year  1901  have  any  meaning  when  contrasted  with  the  year 
1914.  What  we  may  call  our  present  dates  from  the  beginning 
of  the  World  War  or,  more  accurately  perhaps,  in  the  subsequent 
period  of  ambiguous  peace,  whose  problems  of  recovery  are  now 
perplexing  us.  At  any  rate,  we  can  partly  identify  our  present 
with  the  part  of  the  XXth  century  that  we  have  lived. 

The  first  decade  of  the  XXth  century  was  hardly  different 
from  the  last  ten  years  of  the  XlXth.  It  was  still  dominated  by 
the  ideals  of  the  Victorian  period,  which  ended  officially,  one 
might  say,  with  the  death  of  the  queen  in  1901.  The  former 
ways  of  conducting  business  and  the  comfortable  ways  of  living 
were  still  in  force.  People  generally  did  not  pride  themselves 
upon  sophistication,  but  were  more  interested  in  preserving  the 
graces  of  life  and  the  ideals  of  respectability.  The  style  of  the 
new  century  was  still  that  of  the  old;  the  literature  was  still 
Victorian.  People  of  culture  were  more  inclined  to  form  Brown- 
ing clubs  than  to  attend  Ibsen  plays.  The  ancient  institution 
of  marriage  was  not  subjected  to  attack,  divorce  was  not  taken 
for  granted,  and  references  to  sex  were  made  with  reluctance, 
as  also  with  delicacy.  The  population  was  made  up  of  men  and 

596 


AIRPLANES  MANEUVERING 


Pairchild  Aerial  Surveys,  Inc. 

THE  LINER  Manhattan,  IN  THE  HUDSON  RIVER 
(facing  pag®  59?) 


FROM  CENTURY  TO  CENTURY      597 

women  in  whom  mental  health  was  the  rule;  people  were  either 
sane  or  insane,  for  there  was  no  twilight  zone  of  semi-unbalanced 
minds. 


FROM  CENTURY  TO  CENTURY 

The  passage  from  the  XlXth  to  the  XXth  century  saw  little 
change  in  the  outer  mode  of  living.  It  was  still  the  era  of  the 
home,  private  homes  for  the  middle  class,  city  and  country  houses 
for  the  more  wealthy.  In  America,  apartment  houses  were  com- 
paratively few  in  number  even  in  the  larger  cities  and  when 
they  were  built  did  not  rise  above  three  or  four  stories  and  thus 
were  able  to  preserve  the  general  tone  of  domesticity.  In  the 
matter  of  conveyance,  which  was  deemed  of  secondary  impor- 
tance, it  was  still  the  era  of  the  horse,  and  the  ideal  of  motion 
for  its  own  sake,  or  the  flux  of  the  present,  had  not  been  de- 
veloped. There  was  an  approach  to  this,  however,  in  the  bi- 
cycle, but  its  radius  of  activity  was  about  equal  to  that  of  the 
carriage.  The  automobile  appeared,  but  was  a  decided  luxury; 
and  when  the  Ford  put  in  its  appearance  it  was  more  of  an 
object  of  ridicule  than  a  desired  possession.  In  1896  Langley's 
airplane  made  its  first  flight,  one  of  three  thousand  feet,  and  in 
1903  the  more  practical  plane  of  the  Wright  brothers  enabled 
them  in  their  original  flights  to  remain  in  the  air  about  a 
minute  and  travel  852  feet.  Two  years  later,  a  span  of  twenty- 
four  and  a  half  miles  was  made,  which  hardly  anticipated  the 
transatlantic  flight  that  is  now  (1932)  coming  into  vogue.  Radio 
in  the  sense  of  telephonic  communication  from  a  broadcasting 
station  to  a  loud  speaker  is  a  matter  of  the  1920'$. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  century,  business  corporations  were 
small  in  comparison  with  the  gigantic  concerns  of  the  present 
and  did  not  fail  to  arouse  opposition  among  both  literary  men 
and  legislators*  Thus  a  considerable  amount  of  anti-trust  litera- 
ture inspired  by  the  Sherman  anti-trust  law  of  1890  flourished;  in 
1906,  suit  was  brought  against  the  Standard  Oil  Company,  which 
was  ordered  to  dissolve,  the  dissolution  taking  place  five  years 
later.  As  far  as  the  mass  of  the  population  was  concerned, 
America  was  still  the  land  of  opportunity,  for  there  was  still 


598  THE  PRESENT  OUTLOOK 

plenty  of  free  land  left  for  the  disposal  of  those  who  desired  to 
go  west  and  develop  homesteads.  The  Spanish  War  had  given 
the  nation  a  new  faith  in  its  ability  to  contend  with  a  European 
power,  so  that  faith  in  America  and  the  future  of  its  people  was 
unbounded.  There  was  an  unquestioned  belief  in  democracy 
and  just  as  much  confidence  in  the  ability  and  opportunity  of 
each  individual  within  it.  It  was  this  pioneer  spirit  that  America 
expected  to  perpetuate  during  and  after  its  participation  in  the 
World  War.  Europe  was  still  under  the  domination  of  the 
ancient  idea  that  a  victorious  war  is  a  successful  one.  In  con- 
sidering the  present  outlook,  therefore,  it  will  be  necessary  to 
observe  the  most  significant  feature  of  contemporary  existence  — 
the  World  War. 

THE  WORLD  WAR 

A  dire  prophecy  of  the  futility  of  war  had  been  made  and 
as  serious  a  warning  given  four  years  before  the  conflict  began. 
This,  to  mention  just  one  work,  was  brought  out  by  Norman 
Angell  in  The  Great  Illusion  (1910),  a  book  wherein  he  at- 
tempted to  show  "  that  the  commerce  and  industry  of  a  people 
no  longer  depend  upon  the  expansion  of  its  political  frontiers; 
that  a  nation's  political  and  economic  frontiers  do  not  necessarily 
coincide;  that  military  power  is  socially  and  economically  futile 
and  can  have  no  relation  to  the  prosperity  of  the  people  exercising 
it;  that  it  is  impossible  for  one  nation  to  seize  by  force  the  wealth 
or  trade  of  another — to  enrich  itself  by  subjugating  or  imposing 
its  will  by  force  on  another;  that  is,  in  short,  war,  even  when 
victorious,  can  no  longer  achieve  those  aims  for  which  people 
strive." l  Before  we  turn  to  economic  losses,  we  must  not  fail 
to  observe  the  ghastly  destruction  in  the  living  domain  of  human 
existence.  The  losses  of  the  European  belligerents  in  those  who 
were  killed  immediately  or  died  of  their  wounds  amounted  to 
about  7,300,000,  while  the  total  of  the  wounded  ran  up  to 
something  less  than  20  million.  These  figures  do  not  include 
those  of  Japan,  which  were  comparatively  small,  or  those  of 
the  United  States,  where  the  figures  are  about  300  thousand 

1   Op,  cit.,  p.  x, 


ECONOMIC  LOSSES  599 

dead  from  all  causes  connected  with  the  war,  more  than  75 
thousand  wounded,  of  whom  some  85  per  cent  returned  to  duty, 
to  say  nothing  of  a  large  number  unaccounted  for.  These  data 
apply  to  the  military  forces;  the  casualties  in  the  Marine  Corps 
were  comparatively  small.  All  told,  some  50  million  men  were 
engaged  in  fighting  or  in  some  other  form  of  military  activity.2 
Later  estimates  have  placed  the  total  number  of  dead  at  about 
10  million,  of  wounded  well  over  20  million. 

In  continuing  this  tragic  inventory,  we  might  include  later 
losses  resulting  from  revolutions  following  upon  the  war.  If 
warfare  had  not  begun  in  1914,  there  would  be  no  way  of  ac- 
counting for  the  three  attempts  to  restore  the  monarchies  in 
Russia,  two  similar  attempts  in  Hungary,  with  their  attendant 
losses,  or  the  sacrifices  that  resulted  from  the  creation  of  the 
so-called  "  succession  states "  around  the  Baltic  and  in  central 
Europe.  Of  these  later  losses  there  is  no  accurate  account,  since 
Denikin  and  others  who  attempted  to  restore  the  Romanoffs 
to  the  throne  kept  no  records,  while  the  Bolsheviki  minimized 
their  own  casualties  and  magnified  those  of  their  royalist  op- 
ponents. Then  the  famine  following  the  devastations  ia  Russia 
was  responsible  for  additional  thousands  of  deaths,  some  accounts 
of  the  same  running  into  several  millions.  Thus,  making  every 
reasonable  allowance  for  exaggeration,  it  is  fairly  safe  to  state 
that  the  war  was  responsible  for  more  than  10  million  deaths. 
Those  that  came  about  as  the  result  of  undernourishment  and 
neglect  of  children  in  countries  other  than  Russia  in  the  decade 
following  the  war  cannot  be  ascertained,  but  the  misery  of  the 
masses  from  1915  to  1925  was  only  another  sickle  in  the  hands  of 
the  grim  reaper  Death. 

ECONOMIC  LOSSES 

The  loss  in  economic  resources  was  colossal;  the  figures  we 
shall  give  are  so  large  that  imagination  cannot  visualize  the  real 
amount  of  the  account  Since  the  war  was  fought  essentially  in 
the  interests  o£  commercial  rivalry,  the  losses  in  commerce  may 
be  observed  first.  The  industrial  nations  of  Europe,  primarily 

*  Binder,  Major  Social  ^foUems  (1920),  p.  268, 


6oo  THE  PRESENT  OUTLOOK 

Great  Britain  and  Germany,  had  been  trying  constantly  to  ex- 
tend their  exports;  therefore  it  was  natural  for  them  to  seek 
more  colonies  as  outlets  for  their  surplus  products.    The  pro- 
cedure was  based  upon  false  economic  logic;  then  the  facts  of  in- 
ternational commerce  were  against  it.    In  citing  these  facts,  we 
can  do  no  better  than  quote  at  length  from  the  valuable  pages  of 
Charles  A.  Beard's  work,  Cross  Currents  in  Europe  Today  (1922). 
"  Now  strange  as  it  may  seem  —  and  this  is  one  of  the  para- 
doxes of  the  situation  —  the  most  important  branch  of  the  trade 
of  all  European  countries  was  not  with  the  backward  races  of 
the  earth  which  they  were  eagerly  struggling  to  conquer  and 
hold,  but  with  their  powerful  and  enlightened  neighbors.    In 
1911,  for  example,  Great  Britain  sold  to  Germany  57  million 
pounds  worth  of  goods.    That  was  more  than  the  value  of  her 
exports  to  her  immense  Indian  Empire  with  its  200  million  sub- 
jects.   In  the  same  year,  England  sold  to  Russia  goods  to  the 
value  of  22  million  pounds.    That  was  more  than  she  sold  to 
all  the  dusky  natives  of  her  African  and  distant  insular  posses- 
sions.   In  1913,  England's  business  with  Germany,  counting  ex- 
ports and  imports,  was  equal  to  more  than  one  third  her  entire 
business  with  all  her  colonies,  dominions  and  dependencies.    In 
other  words,  on  the  eve  of  the  War,  Great  Britain's  business  with 
Germany  — her  bitterest  rival  — was  a  vital  part  of  her  economic 
life.    There  is  another  fact  worth  remembering;  namely,  that 
Great  Britain,  in  1913,  did  500  million  pounds  worth  of  business 
with  her  imperial  possessions  and  a  billion  pounds  worth  of  busi- 
ness with  the  lands  she  did  not  rule:  namely,  the  free  nations  of 
the  earth.   When  we  recall  that  the  World  War  cost  Great  Britain 
about  10  billion  pounds  and  that  the  annual  interest  and  other 
charges  on  her  debt  in  1921  amounted  to  350  million  pounds, 
we  may  be  permitted  to  raise  a  question  as  to  whether  com- 
mercial warfare  by  arms  *  pays '  in  any  sense  of  the  word."  8 

FIGURES  WRITTEN  IN  RED 

Germany  was  by  no  means  the  only  country  that  was  linked 
in  the  chains  of  trade  with  Great  Britain.    There  was  Austro- 

8  Off.  cit.,  p.  85,  ft  scq. 


FIGURES  WRITTEN  IN  RED  601 

Hungary  and  a  considerable  territory  of  middle  Europe  under 
the  commercial  domination  of  Vienna  which,  while  themselves 
prosperous  and  in  a  position  to  offer  competition  to  Great 
Britain,  offered  her  most  profitable  business  opportunities.  Rus- 
sia, likewise,  was  no  mean  market.  In  1910,  her  export  trade 
amounted  to  1,383,000,000  rubles;  her  imports  totaled  953,000,- 
ooo  rubles.  Europe  was  thus  a  golden  network  of  economic 
bands.  Her  swift  express  trains  carried  merchants  and 
capitalists  from  Paris  to  St.  Petersburg,  from  London  to  Con- 
stantinople. Not  only  did  the  war  destroy  these  golden  lines 
of  a  vast  commercial  system,  but,  by  means  of  strife  and  bitter- 
ness, has  prevented  the  laying  down  of  new  lines  in  the  old 
places.  Today  European  commerce  is  confined  to  bare  necessities, 
while  each  country  tries  to  erect  trade-barriers  against  its  neigh- 
bors. Then  there  is  with  this  commercial  antagonism  a  politi- 
cal one,  the  two  so  interwoven  that  it  is  difficult  to  determine 
which  is  cause,  which  effect. 

Again  we  must  return  to  the  money  question  and  by  means 
of  gigantic  sums  exemplify  the  finances  of  the  belligerents  be- 
fore and  after  the  war.  "The  aggregate  debt  of  the  United 
States,  Great  Britain,  France,  Russia,  Italy,  Germany  and  Austro- 
Hungary  increased  from  August  ist,  1914  to  January  ist,  1919 
by  $166,700,000,000.  This  total  does  not  include  the  increase  in 
the  national  debt  of  Greece,  Serbia,  Turkey,  Bulgaria,  Rumania 
and  Japan  nor  the  losses  sustained  by  municipalities,  villages, 
hamlets  and  farms  in  the  destruction  of  buildings,  machinery 
and  means  of  transportation.  These  figures  are  staggering  but 
have  probably  been  increased  by  twenty  per  cent  during  1919. 
What  the  burden  of  the  future  will  be  may  be  inferred  from 
the  interest  which  has  to  be  paid.  The  difference  between  1920 
and  1913  was,  for  the  United  States  $1,100,000,000  against  $23,- 
000,000;  Great  Britain,  $2,300,000,000  against  $122,500,000;  France, 
$2,000,000,000  against  $257,300,000;  Russia,  $1,600,000,000  against 
$212,200,000;  Italy,  $600,000,000  against  $93,000,000;  Germany, 
$2,500,000,000  against  $200,000,000;  Austro-Hungary,  $1,500,000,- 
ooo  against  $161,700,000  —  a  total  difference  for  the  seven  coun- 
tries of  $0,600,000,000  against  $1,070,000,000.  This  interest  must 
be  raised  annually  and  will  decrease  only  very  gradually  as  pay- 


602  THE  PRESENT  OUTLOOK 

merits  on  the  principal  are  made.  The  increase  is  due  not  only 
to  the  growth  of  the  debts,  but  also  to  the  rise  in  the  rate  of 
interest  from  an  average  of  3.9  per  cent  to  one  of  5.5  per  cent. 
Here  is  an  increase  for  payment  of  interest  of  1,000  per  cent.  For 
each  the  interest  charge  on  indebtedness  exceeds  or  at  least  equals 
the  total  yearly  public  revenue  in  1913  and  imposes  correspond- 
ingly heavy  responsibilities  on  the  taxpayers."4 

The  total  economic  losses  have  been  variously  estimated  from 
250  to  300  billions.  The  total  direct  and  indirect  costs  of  the 
war,  including  as  nearly  as  possible  every  item,  such  as  the 
capitalization  of  the  lives  and  properties  lost  on  land  and  sea 
to  neutrals  as  well  as  belligerents,  have  been  estimated  at  the 
sum  of  $337,946,  i79,657.5  The  United  States  went  into  the  war 
with  a  national  debt  of  $971,562,590  as  of  1916  and  came  out  with 
a  net  cost  for  the  war  of  $22,625,252,843,  having  in  addition  loaned 
the  Allies  the  sum  of  $9,455,014,125  —  a  gross  expenditure  of 
$32,o8o,266,968.6  A  small  part  of  the  loan  to  the  Allies  has  been 
paid  back  but  the  chances  are  that  most  of  the  remainder  will 
have  to  be  canceled.  Meanwhile  other  expenditures  connected 
with  the  war  have  to  be  added  to  its  cost.  Federal  expenditures 
alone  in  behalf  of  World  War  veterans,  including  all  expenses 
for  pensions,  medical  and  educational  care,  administration  and 
bonuses,  etc.,  have  amounted  to  $5475^505,520  between  1917  and 
February  29,  19327  Then  the  expenditures  of  different  states 
add  to  this  sum  paid  by  the  Federal  government. 

IDEAL  LOSSES 

Suppose  we  turn  from  these  figures  that  only  a  Croesus  could 
comprehend  and  consider  individuals  with  small  amounts  of 
money  in  their  pockets.  Prior  to  the  avalanche  of  1914,  the 
average  Parisian  workingman  paid  about  18  francs  for  a  month's 
rent  as  reckoned  in  gold  and  30  centimes  for  a  kilo  of  bread. 
After  the  victory,  the  same  French  citizen  was  compelled  to  pay 

4  Binder,  Major  Social  Problems,  p.  269. 

5  Bogert,  Direct  and  Indirect  Costs  of  the  Great  World  War,  Carnegie  Endow- 
ment for  International  Peace  publications,  p.  299. 

6  /£.,  p.  267. 

7  Charles  Merz,  New  Yor^  Times  (April  10,  1932), 


EUROPE  SINCE  THE  ARMISTICE  603 

four  times  as  much  for  rent  and  bread.  Every  other  European 
like  him  has  been  compelled  to  pay  for  the  cost  of  his  war. 
Then,  money-inflation  added  to  the  general  distress  and  pro- 
duced confusion  worse  confounded.  Who  knew  the  value  of  the 
official  paper  he  carried  about  with  him?  Its  purchasing  power 
could  change  with  the  winds  or  one  wake  up  in  the  morning  to 
find  that  the  money  of  yesterday  had  shrunk  in  size  like  the  hide 
in  Balzac's  story  The  Wild  Asses'  Sfyn.  The  tendency  engen- 
dered was  not  that  of  thrift  but  of  spendthrift.  How  worth- 
less was  paper  money  may  be  inferred  from  the  specific  case  of 
certain  printers  in  Russia's  official  money  mill  who  stole  some  15 
billion  rubles  but  thereby  managed  to  profit  to  the  extent  of  only 
$70.  But  such  monetary  losses  were  not  the  only  ones. 

There  were  imponderable,  incalculable  ideal  losses.  The  inter- 
national good  will  which  the  peoples  of  Europe  had  required 
decades  to  develop  was  destroyed  when  the  first  shot  was  fired. 
The  pale  light  of  love  was  overwhelmed  by  a  black  cloud.  Who 
can  tell  how  many  homes  were  broken  up,  how  many  widows 
and  orphans  made?  How  many  died  of  starvation,  disease,  and 
the  spiritual  maladies  of  sorrow  and  the  broken  heart?  Confi- 
dence in  civilization  was  destroyed  and  the  spiritual  outlook  upon 
life  shattered  more  thoroughly  than  the  walls  of  a  cathedral 
like  Rheims.  Civilization  may  be  returning,  but  its  moral 
standards  have  been  ruptured  and  its  ideals  obscured.  Perhaps 
the  war,  while  it  lasted,  did  produce  a  flash  of  patriotism,  an 
outburst  of  self-sacrifice  and  a  broadening  of  the  intellectual 
horizon,  but  such  moral  assets  are  so  small  in  comparison  with 
the  necessary  liabilities  that  one  may  well  ask,  "What  price 
victory?"  It  is  only  as  the  western  world,  which  according 
to  Spengler  faces  its  downfall,  resolves  to  outmode  and  outlaw 
war  that  one  can  be  optimistic  about  the  present  century  "  up 


to  now." 


EUROPE  SINCE  THE  ARMISTICE 

What  about  Europe  since  the  signing  of  the  Armistice?  In 
what  ways  have  the  leading  civilized  nations  established  any 
sort  of  modus  vivcndi?  As  is  ever  the  case  with  intense  emo- 


604  THE  PRESENT  OUTLOOK 

tions,  the  feelings  inflamed  by  the  war  have  altered  and  in  most 
cases  disappeared.  The  human  heart  cannot  forever  indulge 
the  hatreds  that  spring  up  in  special,  sudden  ways;  these  tend 
to  burn  themselves  out.  Since  the  close  of  the  war,  which  is 
our  real  present,  a  series  of  readjustments  may  be  taken  to 
mean  as  many  efforts  to  rehabilitate  civilization.  The  history 
of  Europe  in  this  period  may  be  divided  into  three  parts,  in 
which  have  been  found  as  many  attempts  to  reconcile  various 
bitter  antagonisms.8  The  first  period  may  be  said  to  extend 
from  the  Treaty  of  Versailles  in  1919  to  the  occupation  of  the 
Ruhr,  beginning  in  January,  1923.  The  period  was  marked  by 
political  confusion  and  economic  chaos  among  the  Central  Pow- 
ers, especially  Germany,  where  in  the  summer  of  1923  the  old 
mark,  which  had  been  terribly  inflated,  collapsed.  The  Cen- 
tral Powers  were  shorn  of  their  colonies  by  their  conquerors 
who  seem  to  have  been  animated  by  self-interest,  a  spirit  of  re- 
venge, and  a  desire  to  render  their  one-time  enemies  powerless 
in  the  future.  Since  the  Treaty  of  Versailles  had  claimed 
that  Germany  and  her  allies  were  responsible  for  the  war,  the 
procedure  took  on  the  form  of  punishment. 

POLITICAL  ACTIVITIES 

In  the  matter  of  liabilities,  the  amount  of  reparation  based 
largely  upon  theoretical  computations  was  placed  at  the  sum  of 
120  billion  dollars,  although  later  this  was  reduced  to  the  rela- 
tively small  figure  of  9  billion.  The  Treaty  of  St.  Germain  with 
Austria  severed  that  country  from  Hungary.  Thus  Austria, 
which  had  been  the  immediate  occasion  of  the  war,  was  not  only 
defeated  but  disrupted.  When  the  country  became  impoverished, 
its  people  were  fed  by  the  American  Relief  Administration  at 
the  cost  of  72  million  dollars.  In  1922  the  remnant  of  a  nation 
secured  from  Great  Britain  and  France,  Italy  and  Czechoslo- 
vakia about  35  million  dollars,  which  saved  it  from  complete 
collapse.  The  Treaty  of  Trianon  with  Hungary  had  the  ulti* 
mate  effect  of  reducing  the  former  dual  monarchy  to  a  fraction 
of  its  former  self.  Their  territory  was  reduced  to  about  one 

8  Article  "  Europe,"  New  Standard  Encyclopedia, 


POLITICAL  ACTIVITIES  605 

third  of  its  former  extent;  the  remaining  two  thirds  were  given 
to  the  newly  created  succession  states  of  Czechoslovakia  and 
Jugoslavia,  as  also  to  the  old  country  of  Rumania,  which  with 
the  addition  of  Bessarabia  from  Russia  and  the  Dobrudja  from 
Bulgaria  increased  its  territory  and  population  two  hundred 
per  cent.  Italy  fell  heir  to  Trieste  and  Fiume  with  the  adjoin- 
ing territory.  Turkey  was  reduced  to  a  narrow  strip  of  land 
around  Constantinople,  from  whence  it  had  to  transfer  its  seat 
of  government  to  Angora  in  Anatolia,  Its  other  European  lands 
fell  into  the  hands  of  Greece  and  the  newly  created  state  of 
Albania. 

In  the  meanwhile,  Mussolini  had  taken  control  of  Italy  in  the 
name  of  Fascism.  In  the  role  of  Caesarean  dictator,  Mussolini 
acquired  the  free  city  of  Fiume  and  the  island  of  Rhodes.  An 
expedition  into  Corfu  was  checked  by  the  intervention  of  the 
League  of  Nations.  Such  an  increase  in  the  power  of  Italy  irri- 
tated France,  which  felt  that  the  system  of  the  balance  of  power 
was  being  threatened  by  Mussolini,  who  by  means  of  treaties 
was  making  overtures  to  Czechoslovakia,  Hungary,  Germany, 
Spain,  Rumania,  and  even  Great  Britain*  In  order  to  offset 
these  advances,  France  approached  the  members  of  The  Little 
Entente,  composed  of  Czechoslovakia,  Jugoslavia,  and  Rumania, 
and  by  means  of  loans  forced  Austria  and  Hungary  to  submit 
to  this  alliance.  The  object  of  France  in  these  acts  of  diplo- 
macy was  to  cripple  Germany  by  isolating  her  and  by  extracting 
the  utmost  in  reparations.  To  this  end  France  established  an 
entente  cordialc  with  Poland,  which  had  been,  rehabilitated  from 
former  Russian,  Prussian,  and  Austrian  territory,  France  en- 
couraged the  formation  of  succession  states  along  the  Baltic  at 
the  expense  of  Russia.  These  states  —  Estonia,  Latvia,  Lithu- 
ania, and  Finland  —  are  small,  but  with  Poland  they  formed 
a  bulwark  against  Bolshevist  Russia.  There  communism  had 
succeeded,  had  been  able  to  gain  some  foothold  in  Germany  and 
Italy,  and  established  a  short-lived  regime  in  Hungary  under 
Bfla  Kun;  The  first  post-war  period  of  European  history  may 
be  called  the  political  one.  Its  climax  was  reached  in  the  Geneva 
Protocol  for  the  Pacific  Settlement  of  International  Disputes  in 
the  fall  of  1924. 


THE  PRESENT  OUTLOOK 


ECONOMIC  ENTERPRISES 

The  second  period  might  be  styled  the  economic  one;  it  was 
begun  in  1924  in  connection  with  the  Dawes  plan  o£  reparations 
and  continued  until  the  close  of  1927.  Its  work  was  resumed, 
however,  in  1929  in  connection  with  the  Young  reparations  plan. 
Both  of  these  plans  were  developed  by  the  realization  that  Ger- 
many, the  chief  debtor  nation,  was  approaching  economic  dis- 
aster; they  led  to  a  more  rational  view  of  the  reparations  problem 
and  prepared  the  way  for  the  creation  of  the  Bank  for  Interna- 
tional Settlements,  1930.  An  additional  step  toward  genuine 
peace  with  Germany  was  her  admission  to  the  League  of  Na- 
tions and  the  award  of  a  permanent  seat  in  1927.  The  important 
Treaty  of  Locarno  in  1925,  signed  by  Belgium,  France,  Germany, 
Great  Britain,  and  Italy,  pledged  these  powers  to  the  recognition 
of  the  then-existing  status  quo  and  left  them  free  to  direct  their 
attention  to  the  improvement  of  the  economic  situation,  espe- 
cially in  the  defeated  countries.  The  attempt  of  Germany  to 
seek  an  Anschluss  with  Austria  and  Hungary  by  means  of  a 
customs  union  aroused  violent  protest  from  the  Entente  Powers 
in  1931  on  the  ground  that  it  threatened  the  policy  of  the  balance 
of  power. 

During  the  years  1923-1929,  the  United  States  made  a  number 
of  debt  settlements  with  various  European  States  and  extended 
numerous  large  loans  to  foreign  governments  in  both  Europe 
and  South  America.  This  government  took  part  both  in  the 
inauguration  and  endorsement  of  various  peace  pacts.  Great 
Britain  has  played  a  comparatively  moderate  part  in  Continental 
politics,  since  her  energy  has  been  absorbed  chiefly  in  the  adjust- 
ment of  internal  problems,  the  establishment  of  the  Irish  Free 
State  and  the  questions  arising  in  connection  with  her  rule  in 
India.  There  is  no  little  significance  in  the  change  of  terms  from 
"  British  Dominions  "  to  "  British  Commonwealth  of  Nations." 

RUSSIA'S  FIVE  YEAR  PLAN 

The  third  period  of  European  post-war  history,  or  that  from 
1928,  may  be  thought  of  most  clearly  in  connection  with  Soviet 


RUSSIA'S  FIVE  YEAR  PLAN  607 

Russia.  It  may  be  dated  from  the  tentative  operation  o£  the  Five 
Year  Plan,  taken  up  in  October,  1928  and  adopted  in  May,  1929. 
The  plan  calls  for  the  socialization  of  agriculture  and  industrial 
expansion  with  the  increase  of  output  of  55  per  cent  in  the  one 
and  133  per  cent  in  the  other.  In  the  technic'alization  of  Russia, 
assistance  has  been  loaned  by  American  engineers.  In  this  pe- 
riod, which  is  the  present  one,  it  has  come  to  be  recognized  that 
the  Soviet  is  quite  a  permanent  factor  in  international  matters, 
Russia  has  all  but  proved  its  ability  to  maintain  a  stable  govern- 
ment and  organize  its  internal  affairs.  In  recognition  of  the  new 
Russian  system  of  industry  and  the  modern  American  system 
of  production,  Europe  has  responded  in  the  form  of  an  economic 
bloc  or  Pan-Europa  or  what  might  be  called  the  United  States 
of  Europe.  It  is  the  program  sponsored  by  Aristide  Briand. 

The  three  periods  mentioned  may  be  taken  to  signify  as  many 
attempts  to  solve  the  problems  that  have  dogged  our  steps  since 
the  end  of  the  World  War.  The  best  that  we  can  say  of  them 
is  that  they  have  not  been  failures.  At  this  point,  in  our  attempt 
to  come  to  an  understanding  with  the  present,  we  might  observe 
the  practically  bloodless  revolution  in  which  Spain,  on  April  15, 
1931,  deposed  its  monarch  and  established  a  republic.  And  we 
might  add  the  moratorium  of  June  19  of  the  same  year,  when  the 
United  States  established  a  temporary  suspension  of  reparation 
payments.  These  separate  events  are  symptoms  of  a  desire  to 
effect  radical  changes  peacefully  and  to  promote  'economic 
cooperation.  The  German  ballot  which  reelected  President  von 
Hindenburg  is  not  without  its  meanings.  First,  it  was  an  indi- 
cation that  the  German  people  wish  to  continue  a  stable  form  of 
government  and  are  disinclined  to  make  any  approach  toward 
Fascism,  as  this  was  represented  by  Adolf  Hitler,  the  opponent  of 
von  Hindenburg.  The  defeat  of  Hitler  was  a  defeat  for  mili- 
taristic nationalism*  As  a  side  issue  of  this  political  event,  it 
might  be  observed  that  the  Hitler  campaign  was  made  on  the 
basis  o£  no  further  payment  o£  reparations.  This  was  accepted 
by  the  Germans  as  a  vigorous  gesture,  but,  in  addition  to  that, 
it  was  taken  to  mean  that  the  victors  in  the  World  War  are 
resigned  to  the  idea  that  reparation  payments  are  bound  to 
come  to  an  end  without  the  full  payment  of  the  war  debt. 


THE  PRESENT  OUTLOOK 

THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 

The  present,  or  post-war,  situation  sees  a  rainbow  of  promise 
in  the  League  of  Nations,  which  has  been  in  existence  and  opera- 
tion for  a  dozen  years.  The  League  was  formally  established 
January  10,  1920.  It  is  an  association  "of  States  which,  by  sign- 
ing the  covenant,  pledge  themselves  to  refrain  from  war  until 
they  have  submitted  their  disputes  with  one  another  or  with 
States  not  members  of  the  League  to  the  consideration  of  the 
League.  Any  State  violating  the  pledge  is  automatically  in  a 
condition  of  outlawry  as  to  the  other  States,  which  are  bound 
to  sever  all  political  and  economic  relations  with  the  defaulting 
member.  Not  only  this,  but  the  nation-members  of  the  League 
have  pledged  themselves  to  cooperate  in  social  and  economic, 
humanitarian  and  labor  questions.  By  its  timely  intervention, 
the  League  has  been  able  to  prevent  several  smaller  wars  and 
has  been  responsible  further  for  several  agencies  of  great  inter- 
national importance.  It  supplies  information  concerning  topics 
of  interest  to  nations  and  endeavors  to  mold  public  opinion  in 
the  interests  of  peace.  The  most  important  of  the  particular 
agencies  for  peace  have  been  the  Disarmament  Conference, 
the  Kellogg-Briand  Pact,  and  the  Bank  for  International  Set- 
tlements. 

In  October,  1924,  a  number  of  European  powers  met  in 
Geneva  in  order  to  clear  still  further  the  tense  atmosphere  pro- 
duced by  the  war.  The  discussions  resulted  in  The  Geneva 
Protocol  for  the  Pacific  Settlement  of  International  Disputes, 
Few  nations  signed  the  document  and  thus  this  attempt  on  the 
part  of  the  League  of  Nations  to  build  up  a  permanent  agency 
of  arbitration  died  abortively  in  1925.  However,  the  policy 
thus  inaugurated  proved  more  permanent  and  resulted  in  a 
number  of  disarmament  conferences,  which  have  been  o£  in- 
creasing importance  in  the  troubled  affairs  of  the  nations.  The 
conference  held  in  the  early  part  of  1932  at  Geneva  has  aroused 
greater  interest  than  any  of  its  predecessors  because  of  the  larger 
number  of  nations  represented.  It  will  not  bring  peace  to  earth 
but  it  does  afford  an  example  of  what  could  be  done  by  men  of 
good  will. 


SOCIAL  EFFECTS  OF  THE  WAR 


OTHER  PACIFIC  MOVEMENTS 


609 


The  Kellogg-Briand  Pact  of  1928  for  the  renunciation  of  war  is 
a  multilateral  treaty  aimed  generally  at  the  outlawry  of  war; 
it  may  be  considered  the  logical  outcome  of  the  last  of  the 
Fourteen  Points  indicated  during  the  war  by  President  Wilson. 
The  United  States  itself  has  declined  to  become  a  member  of  the 
League  but  has  given  ever-increasing  evidence  of  its  interest 
in  the  League's  activities,  especially  in  that  of  the  World  Court, 
or  the  Permanent  Court  of  International  Justice.  It  was  officially 
represented  at  the  Disarmament  Conference  of  1932. 

The  Bank  of  International  Settlements,  located  at  Basel,  Swit- 
zerland, was  opened  May  20, 1930  with  a  fixed  capital  of  500  mil- 
lion Swiss  francs,  The  purpose  of  this  organization  is  to  avoid 
friction  that  might  be  occasioned  by  the  payment  of  war  debts 
and  reparations.9  All  such  payments  are  made  to  this  bank, 
which  disburses  the  moneys  to  the  various  creditors  and  seeks, 
further,  to  adjust  all  differences  in  the  matter  of  claims  between 
the  parties  concerned.  From  the  beginning,  the  operations  of  the 
bank  proved  most  beneficial;  the  first  year's  business  showed 
a  turnover  o£  more  than  300  million  dollars. 

These  activities  of  the  League  are  to  some  extent  the  cause 
but  to  a  greater  degree  the  effect  of  that  general  aversion  to 
war  which  is  growing  up  among  civilized  peoples.  A  number 
of  books  depicting  the  horrors  of  war  have  found  ready  and 
numerous  readers  and  the  feeling  that  war  must  be  abolished 
has  grown  in  volume  and  intensity.  The  ideas  of  philosophers, 
like  Immanuel  Kant,  on  the  subject  of  perpetual  peace  are  studie4 
more  eagerly  today  than  ever  before,  and  a  greater  number  of 
people  are  joining  the  ranks  of  the  Pacifists.  In  general,  the 
feeling  that  war  is  an  abomination  is  shared  by  peoples  and 
governments  alike;  it  has  become  a  kind  of  international  force. 

SOCIAL  EFFECTS  OF  THE  WAR 

A  certain  touch  of  internationalism  is  indicated  by  the  various 
European  tours  that  have  become  so  popular  since  the  war* 
*  Article  "Reparations,"  New  International  Yearbook  (*93o). 


THE  PRESENT  OUTLOOK 

Such  tours  were  in  operation  before  1914,  but  were  not  such 
popular  movements  as  we  observe  today.  Travel  was  a  matter 
of  business  or  luxury.  The  war  aroused  curiosity  on  the  part 
of  Americans,  who  desired  to  visit  the  battlefields,  see  the  lands 
about  which  they  had  heard  so  much,  and  breathe  the  atmosphere 
of  the  Old  World.  Hence  we  have  observed  numerous  student 
tours  and  sometimes  the  so-called  "  floating  universities,"  which 
have  taken  their  classes  on  tours  around  the  world,  stopping  at 
important  places,  investigating  the  customs  of  different  peoples, 
and  studying.  Such  intelligent  travel  is  a  manifestation  on  the 
part  of  one  half  of  the  world  to  learn  how  the  other  half  lives. 
The  war,  which  still  colors  our  present  outlook,  cast  a  certain 
reflection  upon  science.  It  was  more  a  matter  of  machines  than 
of  men.  The  only  reason  the  Germans  could  achieve  so  many 
victories  against  numerically  superior  foes  is  found  in  their  su- 
perior use  of  the  scientific  means  of  warfare.  Their  submarines, 
"  Big  Berthas,"  and  lethal  gases  were  tragically  effective.  Their 
application  of  science  to  food-economy  and  in  finding  synthetic 
substitutes  for  war-materials  enabled  them  to  hold  out  much 
longer  than  otherwise  would  have  been  possible.  It  was  only 
when  their  raw  materials  were  exhausted  and  the  Allies  them- 
selves applied  similar  scientific  methods,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
British  "  tank/5  that  the  Germans  were  forced  to  yield. 

AERONAUTICS 

The  war  was  fought  on  land  and  sea,  beneath  the  surface  of 
the  earth  and  water,  and  in  the  air.  One  result  of  these  bel- 
ligerent operations  has  been  to  make  us  "  air-minded.*'  Aero« 
nautics  is  the  science  that  has  profited  by  the  war.  The  risks 
of  flying  are  much  greater  than  those  of  motoring,  but  the  ab- 
sence of  physical  obstacles  and  the  possibility  of  choosing  one's 
own  path  as  well  as  the  speed  attainable  have  loaned  a  lure  to 
aviation.  Only  the  future  can  tell  what  will  come  of  a  mode  of 
transportation  that  still  is  unusual.  The  record  solo  flight  o£ 
Charles  A.  Lindbergh,  who  in  1927  flew  from  New  York  to 
Paris,  a  distance  of  3,610  miles,  in  thirty-three  hours  and  twenty- 
nine  minutes,  is  not  likely  to  be  equaled  by  the  average  aviator, 


THE  AMERICAN  SKYLINE 

although  an  approximation  to  it  was  made  in  May,  1932  by  the 
famous  woman-flyer  Amelia  Earhart.  Although  aviation,  in 
comparison  with  motoring,  is  still  in  the  hands  of  isolated  ex- 
perts, it  is  becoming  safer  every  year  and  correspondingly  more 
popular.  There  are  actually  fewer  accidents  in  the  air  than  on 
the  auto  highway,  although  the  proportion  of  accidents  to  total 
trips  is  much  greater,  but  catastrophes  in  the  air  are  of  such 
spectacular  character  as  to  cause  much  comment  in  the  press. 
The  figures  to  which  we  must  resort  in  speaking  of  anything  in 
this  age  of  statistics  are  impressive. 

In  the  year  1931,  all  aircraft  under  the  American  flag,  civilian, 
commercial,  governmental,  flew  a  grand  total  of  218,890,503 
miles.  This  was  six  and  a  half  million  miles  less  than  in  1930, 
but  twenty  million  more  than  in  the  boom  year,  1929.  Civilian 
and  commercial  planes  flew  144,978,228  miles  in  1931,  compared 
with  164,793,612  in  1930  and  144,579,451  miles  in  1929.  *  The 
number  of  passengers  carried  in  1931  was  1,875,992  compared 
with  2,621,992  in  I930.10 

THE  AMERICAN"  SKYLINE 

In  a  certain  sense,  the  background  of  the  present  outlook  in 
America  is  afforded  by  the  skyline  of  the  great  city.  In  dealing 
with  The  Place  of  Art  in  Civilization,  we  made  some  comment 
on  American  architecture  in  connection  with  the  general  history 
of  building.  This  topic  we  must  resume  in  order  to  comprehend 
the  trend  of  contemporary  life.  The  increased  value  of  land 
forced  modern  enterprise  to  extend  the  height  of  the  building 
rather  than  to  extend  the  area  of  the  foundation.  The  result 
has  been  the  skyscraper.  Although  the  first  of  this  architectural 
type  is  usually  associated  with  the  city  of  Chicago,  the  New 
Yorker  can  point  to  the  fact  that  in  1880  George  B.  Post  built 
for  Darius  O.  Mills  a  building  120  feet  in  height  and  commodious 
enough  to  house  1,200  tenants.  By  the  beginning  of  the  XXth 
century,  the  mastery  of  steel  construction  and  the  elevator  made 
more  ambitious  projects  possible.  In  1902,  the  Flatiron  Building 
in  New  York  rose  to  the  height  of  twenty  stories,  or  286  feet,  In 
10  Aircraft  Yearbook  (1933),  p.  12,  et  seq. 


6i2  THE  PRESENT  OUTLOOK 

1913,  the  Woolworth  Building  ascended  sixty  stories  or  796  feet. 
A  few  years  ago,  to  say  nothing  of  the  numerous  commercial 
towers  erected  in  the  interval,  the  Chrysler  Building  extended 
its  sixty-eight  stories  to  a  height  of  1,046  feet,  only  to  be  displaced 
in  the  air  by  New  York's  and  the  world's  tallest  structure  — 
the  Empire  State  Building,  with  its  altitude  of  1,248  feet  above 
the  street. 

What  shall  we  say  of  these  structures  which  are  so  characteris- 
tic of  contemporary  America?  They  seem  indeed  to  ignore  the 
mythological  message  which  might  come  to  them  from  the 
Tower  of  Babel  with  its  heaven-defying  height  and  its  confusion 
of  tongues.  Are  we  in  our  architecture  challenging  the  law  of 
gravity?  Are  we  also,  with  our  mixture  of  races,  running  the  risk 
of  confused  tongues  and  conflicting  race-ideals  ?  Prof.  Charles  A. 
Beard  in  his  monumental,  half-million-word  work,  The  Rise  of 
American  Civilization,  has  a  significant  word  on  this  subject. 
"  For  good  or  evil,  perhaps  beyond  both,  in  any  case  inexorably, 
the  spirit  of  American  business  enterprise  was  not  reverent, 
shrinking  or  benign;  it  was  the  spirit  of  power,  crude  and  ruth- 
less, rash  to  the  point  of  peril,  defiant  of  all  petty  material  limita- 
tions, given  to  action  too  swift  for  meters.  When  called  upon 
to  serve  this  spirit,  architects  for  a  long  time  came  hobbling  in 
the  restraints  of  the  academies;  they  deprecated  it,  scorned  it  or 
if  they  took  commissions  tried  to  crush  it."  u  To  what  extent,  in 
what  way  shall  we  moralize  upon  American  architecture?  In 
itself  it  is  an  obvious  form  of  building;  society  demands  it,  nature 
allows  it.  If  we  may  moralize  at  all,  we  may  observe  that  those 
who  entered  the  Parthenon  were  infused  with  the  classic  spirit 
in  all  its  superiority,  while  they  who  in  all  reverence  crossed 
the  portals  of  Chartres  and  Rheims  were  filled  with  the  Gothic 
spirit  in  all  its  solemnity.  Are  we  of  this  age  inspired  with  feel- 
ings equally  appropriate  or  must  we  come  under  the  condemna- 
tion of  the  poet  who,  in  another  connection,  said  of  our  peace 
palaces,  "Ye  build,  ye  build  but  do  not  enter  in"?  It  would 
require  giants  or  supermen  properly  to  inhabit  such  gigantic 
structures,  hence  one  is  tempted  to  make  the  comment  —  such 
people  in  such  buildings. 

u  Op.  tit.,  Part  Two,  pp.  786-787* 


Keystone  View  Co, 

THE  EMPIRE  STATE  BUILDING,  NEW  YORK  CITY 


4HiJ  TKE  Nnw  YORK  SKYLINE 


POPULAR  SCIENCE 


MOVING  PICTURES 


613 


A  totally  different  manifestation  of  man's  power  over  nature 
is  found  in  the  moving  picture,  an  indication  of  national  en- 
tertainment on  a  huge  scale.  The  next  century  may  look  back 
upon  this  one  amazed  to  learn  that  today  a  considerable  portion 
of  the  population  spend  part  of  the  day  or  night  looking  at  long 
strips  of  photographs.  "  In  the  United  States  there  are  over 
22,000  motion-picture  theaters  having  a  weekly  average  attend- 
ance of  120  million  people." 12  This  amounts  to  saying  that 
one  seventh  of  the  population  are  in  attendance  daily.  From  an 
inconspicuous  beginning  at  about  the  opening  of  the  century,  the 
industry,  as  we  may  call  it,  has  shown  marked  improvement  in 
technique  and  extraordinary  increase  in  popularity.  The  "  nick^ 
elodeons  "  that  sprang  up  in  the  first  decade  of  the  century  were 
crude  affairs  attended  by  people  whose  social  standing  is  indicated 
by  the  price  of  admission  charged.  Today  we  find  magnificent 
buildings  often  superior  to  theaters  and  opera  houses  wherein  are 
exhibited  films  whose  production  has  cost  millions.  Such  daily 
shows  are  taken  for  granted  and  attendance  upon  the  <f  movies  " 
is  parallel  to  reading  the  news.  The  pictures  are  sometimes  ele- 
vating and  instructive,  but  usually  commonplace  in  dramatic  con- 
struction and  tawdry  in  appearance.  At  the  present  time,  the 
leading  aim  of  the  motion  picture  is  to  project  drama.  The  effect 
of  such  an  adaptation  is  often  that  of  the  substitution  of  coin- 
cidence for  motivated  action,  so  that  a  good  picture  is  often  a 
bad  play*  The  motion  picture,  however,  is  an  industry  rather 
than  an  art.  The  total  capital  invested  in  the  enterprise  through- 
out the  world  is  about  two  and  a  half  billion  dollars.  The  addi- 
tion o£  equipment  for  the  sound  picture  cost  approximately  half 
a  billion, 

POPULAR  SCIENCE 

The  effect  of  the  technicalism  involved  in  modern  inventions 
has  been  direct  and  physical,  indirect  and  psychological    We 
are  utilizing  what  the  machine  produces;  we  are  trying  to  un- 
*a  Article  "  Motion  Pictures,"  New  Standard  Encyclopedia. 


THE  PRESENT  OUTLOOK 

derstand  how  the  product  is  manufactured.  This  has  given  rise 
to  popular  science.  This  movement  may  not  have  enhanced  the 
dignity  of  physics  and  other  sciences  but  it  has  served  to  enlighten 
the  modern  mind,  especially  in  the  case  of  youth.  The  typical 
American  boy  plays  with  mechanical  toys  or  miniature  repro- 
ductions of  machines  and  thus  grows  up  in  the  atmosphere  of 
the  scientific.  In  addition  to  this,  he  and  his  elders  also  find 
in  electrical  appliances,  to  say  nothing  of  "  the  car,"  an  incentive 
to  observe  and  perhaps  think  about  scientific  matters.  A  number 
of  popular  magazines,  such  as  Science  News  Letter,  Popular 
Science,  Popular  Mechanics,  Science  and  Invention,  cater  to  the 
mild  appetite  for  scientific  information.  This  semiscientific 
state  of  mind  at  large  is  made  more  intensive  by  science  courses 
in  the  schools,  if  not  by  popular  discussions  in  books  and  mag- 
azine articles  devoted  to  the  new  physics.  Hence  a  young  lady 
who  might  be  expected  to  comment  upon  the  latest  novel  may 
be  heard  discussing  the  Quantum  Theory.  It  is  doubtful  whether 
the  mass  of  those  who  speak  glibly  of  science  have  any  inkling 
of  the  theories  recently  put  forth  by  Planck,  Bohr,  and  others,  but 
the  hero-worship  for  Einstein  is  at  least  an  indication  of  interest 
in  the  mysterious  ways  of  the  universe. 

The  present  outlook  is  marked  further  and  more  deeply  by  a 
change  from  the  humanities  of  the  older  education  to  the 
technics  of  the  new.  In  colleges,  the  halls  of  languages  are  by  no 
means  so  popular  as  the  chemical  and  physical  laboratories.  In 
society,  a  gentleman  is  no  longer  a  man  familiar  with  the  clas- 
sics but  one  who  is  adept  at  machinery,  while  a  lady  of  today 
instead  of  speaking  French  drives  her  own  car.  In  addition  to 
science  in  the  form  of  application,  the  present  view  of  the  world 
is  marked  by  science  as  a  sentiment.  The  popularization  of 
science  has  had  the  effect  of  diminishing  fear  and  superstition. 
Even  the  average  person  of  the  present  is  inclined  to  regard 
disease  in  a  scientific  rather  than  an  animistic  manner,  as  the 
logical  result  of  improper  living  or  imperfect  sanitation.  The 
conquest  of  nature,  which,  marked  the  beginning  of  civilization, 
has  reached  a  point  where  man  has  learned  how  to  live  and 
what  to  think  about  the  natural  order  that  produced  him* 

The  expansion  of  the  popular  mind  into  a  world-outlook  may 


LAXITY  IN  MORALS  615 

be  attributed  to  the  World  War.  This  has  been  largely  emo- 
tional and  has  engendered  a  desire  for  a  fuller  life  and  greater 
freedom  of  self-expression.  In  the  case  of  the  more  intelligent 
and  capable  portion  of  the  American  population,  such  a  desire 
for  largesse  and  liberty  revealed  itself  practically  in  the  attempt 
to  extend  enterprise  and  make  more  money.  The  pause  in  in- 
dustry, as  for  example  that  of  building,  called  for  extra  effort  in 
the  field  of  work;  the  inflation  of  prices  due  to  the  war  market 
as  also  payments  on  loans  to  foreign  countries  promised  and 
realized  the  bull  market  that  obtained  until  the  close  of  the  year 
1929.  In  all  this,  there  was  no  industrial  philosophy  at  work, 
for  the  thoughts  that  were  entertained  were  the  effects  of  happy 
circumstances,  not  the  cause  of  them.  With  the  populace  at 
large,  the  fullness  and  freedom  of  life,  as  life  recoiled  from  the 
tension  of  war,  assumed  various  forms  in  which  the  sense  of 
responsibility  was  not  always  present. 

LAXITY  IN  MORALS 

The  sudden  passage  from  war  to  peace  caused  a  relaxation 
of  the  ethical  earnestness  that,  in  the  form  of  courage,  self- 
sacrifice,  and  devotion  to  a  cause,  had  gripped  the  western 
world.  The  moral  quality  of  life  during  the  war  had  been 
largely  that  of  a  morale  consisting  chiefly  of  courage.  When 
such  Spartan  vigor  was  relaxed,  the  result  was  of  the  Epicurean 
sort.  The  uncertainty  of  life  had  shown  itself  on  the  battlefields 
of  Europe  and  the  futility  of  human  existence  insinuated  itself 
into  the  mind  of  the  masses,  who  seemed  inclined  to  adopt  the 
ancient  maxim,  "Let  us  eat,  drink,  and  be  merry,  for  to- 
morrow we  die."  In  the  minds  of  the  older  generation,  the 
ethics  seemed  to  be,  "  The  great  crime  of  war  has  rendered 
petty  all  possible  vices  of  peace."  Those  who  were  too  young  to 
have  participated  in  the  conflict  appeared  to  reason,  "  You  com- 
mitted your  great  sin,  we  will  now  indulge  in  minor  ones."  The 
proprieties  of  the  past,  especially  as  these  had  crystallized  in  the 
Victorian  age,  were  at  once  outmoded  and  a  new  morality 
compounded  of  Cynical  and  Cyrenaic  factors  began  to  prevail. 

This  laxity  in  morals  found  direct  expression  in  connection 


616  THE  PRESENT  OUTLOOK 

with  sex,  a  short  and  significant  word  now  as  much  in  vogue  as 
it  was  formerly  taken  for  granted  and  passed  over  in  silence. 
The  idea  involved  assumed  the  form  of  both  the  artistic  and  scien- 
tific, if  we  may  style  them  such,  for  sex  became  the  subject  of 
novels  and  plays,  where  it  ousted  the  more  refined  sentiment  of 
love.  The  change  has  been  such  as  to  suggest  eroticism  in 
literature.  On  the  scientific  side  of  the  question,  this  biological 
factor  known  to  medical  science  and  assumed  in  practical  life 
has  become  the  subject  of  conversation  and  the  theme  of  books 
on  sexology,  some  of  them  written  by  women.  The  plea  ad- 
vanced in  the  case  of  such  scientific  "  best  sellers  "  is  that  of  truth- 
fulness, or  the  idea  that  the  significant  facts  in  life  should  be 
fully  known  by  as  many  as  possible.  No  such  plea,  however, 
has  been  put  forth  in  connection  with  any  other  biological  func- 
tion, where  it  is  still  assumed  that  nature  will  take  her  own 
course  and  attend  to  the  welfare  of  the  human  organism. 

THE  STATUS  OF  WOMAN 

The  status  of  woman,  which  is  usually  significant  of  a  civiliza- 
tion's temper,  has  undergone  quite  a  radical  change.  This  can 
hardly  be  attributed  to  the  political  significance  of  the  XlXth 
Amendment,  which  gave  woman  the  ballot,  still  less  to  any 
attempt  on  the  part  of  the  politically  "  new  woman  "  to  be  an 
aggressive  force  in  politics.  The  ballots  cast  appear  to  be  about 
as  they  were  before  women  went  to  the  polls,  except  that  more 
of  them  are  cast.  The  change  in  the  status  of  woman  is  more 
decidedly  social.  It  reveals  itself  in  costume  and  coiffure;  the 
short  skirt  almost  necessitated  short  hair  and  vice  versa  in  order 
to  preserve  the  appearance  of  balance  in  woman's  form.  The 
development  of  the  cigarette  habit  is  another  sign  that  woman 
wishes  to  live  pretty  much  after  the  manner  of  man.  This  has 
come  to  the  point  where  to  see  women  smoking  while  walking 
through  the  street  and  frequenting  smoking  cars  is  by  no  means 
unusual.  Perhaps  the  whole  situation  where  women  arc  con- 
cerned may  be  expressed  by  saying  that  the  lines  once  drawn 
between  the  sexes  and  between  women  of  social  position  and 
those  of  doubtful  reputation  have  been  at  least  blurred.  The  re- 


PROHIBITION 

suit  has  been  confusion.  It  would  be  fallacious  to  connect  wo- 
man's new  freedom  with  the  Flapper  movement,  itself  by  no 
means  to  be  regretted;  it  is  not  flaming  youth  but  flaming  middle 
age  that  may  be  criticized. 

The  public  press  responded  to  the  new  outlook  on  life  by 
providing  an  appropriate  sheet:  the  tabloid  press.  The  first 
of  these  diminutive  newspapers  made  its  appearance  at  the  close 
of  the  war,  to  be  followed  by  others  which  now  have  their  regular 
place  on  the  news-stand.  The  tabloids  have  outdone  the  yellow 
journals  in  sensationalism  and  appeal  to  emotion  and  human 
curiosity.  The  press  generally  had  been  able  to  supply  the  de- 
mand for  criminal  news;  the  tabloid  press  added  to  this  bits  of 
piquant  gossip  duly  set  off  by  the  illustrations  that  comprised 
most  of  the  space.  The  great  success  of  these  little  sheets  has 
revealed  the  existence  of  multitudes  who  make  up  mentally  the 
lower  strata  of  society.  These  appear  to  read  with  satisfaction 
the  pseudo-papers  with  the  feeling  that  in  scanning  large,  lurid 
headlines  and  gazing  upon  photographs  they  are  keeping  up 
with  the  news  of  the  day.  Tabloid  readers  seem  to  take  a  per- 
sonal interest  in  their  papers,  thus  giving  the  impression  that  those 
who  absorb  the  hectic  matter  enjoy  it  empathically,  or  by  proxy. 

PROHIBITION 

The  question  of  Prohibition  is  so  vast  and  complicated  that  a 
volume  instead  of  a  paragraph  is  really  demanded  by  it.  We  may 
observe,  however,  that  although  anticipated  by  state-wide  Prohi- 
bition in  many  parts  of  the  country,  that  is,  in  twenty-four  states, 
the  proposal  of  the  XVIIIth  Amendment  at  the  close  of  1917  and 
its  ratification  by  the  states  early  in  1919  was  comparatively  sud- 
den and  may  be  considered  a  war-measure. 

The  popular  attitude  toward  this  gigantic  social  movement  has 
been  the  subject  of  straw  ballots  in  which  the  "  wets "  have  pre- 
ponderated* On  the  other  hand,  tentative  measures  in  the  direc- 
tion of  "  wet "  legislation  by  Congress  have  failed.  I£  one  is  dis- 
posed to  analyze  the  present  situation  in  Prohibition  on  the  basis 
of  national  history  and  sociology,  he  is  likely  to  observe  a  baffling 
combination  of  the  Puritan  spirit  that  brought  the  law  into  exist- 


THE  PRESENT  OUTLOOK 

ence  and  a  pioneer  spirit  of  lawlessness.  Those  who  settled  the 
land  originally  were  of  Puritan  stock,  but  as  they  extended  their 
frontiers  far  and  farther  west,  as  they  did  in  the  days  of  the  pio- 
neers, the  distance  from  any  seat  of  authority  tended  to  make 
them  heedless  of  law.  The  passage  of  time  has  not  removed  the 
Puritan  desire  to  make  laws  and  the  pioneer  tendency  to  ignore 
them.  In  the  language  of  President  Hoover,  when  he  was  Secre- 
tary of  Commerce,  Prohibition  is  "  an  experiment  nobly  planned," 
not  a  "  noble  experiment,"  as  his  words  are  commonly  quoted. 
Apparently  the  "  experiment "  has  engendered  tendencies  wholly 
unlocked  for,  as  in  the  development  of  the  "  gangsterism  "  and 
the  social  and  political  corruption  that  has  followed  in  its  wake. 
To  a  certain  definite  extent,  we  have  exchanged  the  saloon  for  the 
"  speakeasy  "  and  the  licensed  liquor  traffic  for  "  bootlegging." 
The  better  minds  of  the  land,  who  are  in  the  vast  majority,  are 
agreed  that  there  must  be  adequate  liquor  legislation,  but  are  not 
agreed  upon  the  idea  that  this  is  to  be  found  in  national  Prohi- 
bition. 

URBAN  LIFE 

Another  feature  of  the  present  situation  is  findable  in  the 
surge  or  drift  of  the  population  from  country  to  city.  This  may 
be  attributed  to  the  economic  factor  in  contemporary  life.  The 
introduction  of  labor-saving  machinery  on  the  farm  has  rendered 
many  former  agrarian  workers  technically  unemployed,  while 
the  lack  of  proportion  between  agrarian  and  industrial  labor  has 
made  the  farm  unattractive.  But  the  social  factor  has  been  in 
operation  also.  The  city  offers  better  opportunities  for  work,  less 
drudgery,  more  leisure  and  entertainment,  and  more  of  that  thrill 
which  we  have  come  to  believe  a  necessary  ingredient  in  human 
life.  These  are  quite  obvious  factors  put  in  an  informal  manner. 
A  few  lines  of  statistics  will  reveal  their  operation  more  definitely. 

Census  of  Population 

1890  1900  1910  1920  1930 

Urban     22,298,000    30,380,000    42,166,000    54,304,000  68,955,000 

Rural     40,649,000    46,614,000    49,806,000    51,406,000  53,820,000 


URBAN  LIFE 

Thus  the  urban  population,  which  forty  years  ago  was  little  more 
than  half  of  the  rural  figure,  caught  up  with  it  in  about  twenty 
years  and  is  now  considerably  in  excess. 

The  ascendancy  of  the  city  over  the  country  in  such  obvious 
things  as  finance,  business,  politics,  newspapers,  and  the  like 
appears  also  in  manners  and  morals,  customs  and  costumes.  In 
our  own  country,  these  differences  were  never  so  marked  as  they 
were  abroad.  One  who  knew  the  different  sections  of  a  foreign 
land  could  tell  from  a  glance  at  the  costume  from  what  section  a 
person  had  come.  These  differences  in  dress  loaned  color  to  the 
great  international  fairs  at  Leipzig  and  Nizhni  Novgorod;  the 
costumes  displayed  were  loved  and  adhered  to  because  they  ex- 
pressed the  tribal  consciousness  o£  the  wearers  and,  in  many 
cases,  embodied  tribal  history.  But  with  the  ever-increasing 
facilities  for  transportation  on  the  removal  of  political  restric- 
tions on  free  migration,  such  costumes  are  rapidly  passing  away. 
Public  gatherings  in  Madrid  and  Moscow  exhibit  their  country- 
men in  the  same  factory-made  garments  as  one  finds  in  Paris  or 
London  —  the  same  drab  uniform  of  the  Machine  Age  in  which 
none  of  the  love  and  pride  of  the  possessor  is  evident. 

In  the  United  States,  where  outer  uniformity  has  long  pre- 
vailed, there  was  still  a  certain  psychological  difference.  The 
rural  person  was  supposed  to  have  a  better  heart  and  superior 
morals,  while  his  city  cousin  presumed  to  have  a  better  brain 
and  keener  intelligence.  But  now  the  denizen  of  the  rural  regions 
either  reads  city  papers  or  has  the  national  news  gathered  by 
press  associations  and  newspaper  syndicates  printed  in  his  lo- 
cal paper.  His  radio-outfit  keeps  him  constantly  in  touch  with 
urban  centers  and  makes  him  feel  as  though  he  were  a  part  of 
the  nation's  pulsating  life.  In  this  manner,  the  one-time  provin- 
cialism has  given  way  to  a  kind  of  cosmopolitanism,  In  ad- 
dition to  this  national  expansion  which  has  made  the  country 
more  homogeneous,  there  is  a  tendency  to  Europeanize  American 
life.  This  has  come  about  from  reading  news  of  the  war,  foreign 
travel,  and  the  translation  of  foreign  books  into  English. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  present  situation  in  the  western  world 
reveals  the  fact  that  an  Americanization  of  Europe  is  taking 
place  in  the  matter  of  industry*  American  factory  products  were 


620  THE  PRESENT  OUTLOOK 

formerly  imported  by  different  European  countries,  but  now 
Americans  have  exported  the  factories  themselves.  At  first 
such  industrial  exportation  was  at  the  rate  of  2,000  per  annum 
and  although  it  has  slackened  since  1929,  it  is  still  proceed- 
ing in  such  a  way  that  goods  made  by  American  machines 
are  threatening  the  old  handicrafts.  We  have  already  com- 
mented upon  the  fact  that  the  industrial  Five  Year  Plan  in 
Russia  is  involving  American  technics. 

CAPITALISM  AND  COMMUNISM 

In  addition  and  in  sometimes  superficial  trends,  the  present 
outlook  is  rendered  significant  by  the  appearance  and  persist- 
ence of  the  Russian  Soviet.  There  is  nothing  in  Europe,  still 
less  in  America,  that  runs  parallel  with  it.  On  the  surface,  the 
philosophy  of  this  Bolshevism  is  an  economic  one  made  popular 
theoretically  by  Karl  Marx.  But  the  underlying  and  animating 
psychology  of  this  politico-economic  movement  involves  a  breadth 
and  depth  of  life  formerly  unknown  in  Czarist  Russia.  That 
which  would  prove  impossible  here  seems  to  be  at  least  tolerable 
there.  The  Bolsheviki  claim  that  there  communism,  by  liberat- 
ing men  from  the  perpetual  anxiety  over  their  livelihood,  is  able 
thus  to  arouse  their  higher  motives.  The  claim  of  the  Russian 
communist  is  that,  once  their  collectivist  State  has  passed  through 
its  present  period  of  adolescence  with  its  accompanying  storm 
and  stress,  the  mature  government  will  be  able  to  provide  amply 
for  its  citizens,  who  will  then  enjoy  greater  leisure  and  more 
opportunity  for  self -development  and  the  elaboration  of  a  higher 
type  of  mankind.  Thus  runs  the  Utopian  argument  from  Plato's 
Re-public  to  More's  Utopia,  from  Marx's  Capital  to  Edward 
Bellamy's  Looking  Backward,  and  thence  to  Lenin  and  Stalin, 

The  retort  of  the  capitalist  is  based  upon  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent philosophy  of  life.  According  to  capitalistic  ethics,  the 
best  in  man  is  developed  through  struggle  which  supplies  la- 
centive  to  work  and  initiative  in  developing  enterprise.  Com- 
munism, so  argues  the  capitalistic  thinker,  is  possible  but  only 
upon  the  basis  of  slavery  such  as  Plato  advocated  and  the  Incas 
practiced.  Further,  it  is  asserted  that  small  tribes  that  have  lived 


PRESENT  SERIOUSNESS 

for  ages  under  a  communistic  regime  are  still  on  the  lowest  level 
of  civilization.  Capitalism  may  be'  guilty  of  some  iniquities,  but 
these  fade  into  insignificance  when  compared  with  the  funda- 
mental iniquity  of  communism  in  its  attempt  to  reduce  all  men 
to  the  same  level,  since  the  leveling  process  will  not  be  upward 
but  downward.  If  the  present  injustices  of  capitalism  can  be 
removed,  this  system  of  producing  and  distributing  wealth  will 
still  offer  the  highest  opportunities  for  the  type  of  life  all  men 
are  supposed  to  seek. 

THE  END  OF  IMMIGRATION 

The  present  outlook  in  the  matter  of  American  population  re- 
veals the  fact  that  America  is  no  longer  the  land  of  golden 
opportunity  for  European  immigrants.  For  more  than  a  century 
this  land  was  a  haven  of  refuge  for  all  who  in  their  distress 
sought  to  improve  their  economic,  social,  and  cultural  condition. 
The  largest  number  of  immigrants  admitted  to  this  country  in 
any  decade  was  from  1901  to  1910,  when  8,795,000  aliens  who 
intended  to  make  their  homes  here  entered  our  various  ports. 
The  following  decade  showed  a  sharp  decline;  the  third,  marked 
as  it  was  by  stricter  immigration  laws,  showed  a  decided  re- 
cession; while  the  fourth  one  seems  likely  to  prove  the  end  of 
immigration,  unless  some  decided  and  unexpected  change  takes 
place.  In  1931,  the  number  of  immigrants  admitted  was  only 
97,000,  the  deportations  amounted  to  2,000,  while  the  number 
of  emigrant  departures  totalled  61,882.  For  1932,  the  number  of 
new  arrivals  is  estimated  at  only  45,000  and  with  the  return 
of  older  immigrants  to  their  native  lands  there  will  be  no  in- 
crease of  population  from  that  source.  Greater  opportunities 
are  now  being  offered  by  several  South  American  republics  and 
Immigrants  from  overcrowded  Europe  are  headed  southward, 
especially  toward  Brazil  and  Argentina. 

PRESENT  SERIOUSNESS 

The  outlook  for  the  second  decade  since  the  war  is  such  as 
to  reveal  a  greater  degree  of  seriousness  on  the  part  of  the  popu- 


622  THE  PRESENT  OUTLOOK 

lace.  Law  is  regarded  as  something  to  be  changed,  not  merely 
defied.  The  gangster,  who  was  originally  a  "  rum  runner  "  but 
has  now  become  a  kidnaper  and  murderer,  is  no  longer  viewed 
in  the  guise  of  a  Robin  Hood.  There  was  a  time  when  the  life 
story  of  a  gangster  was  on  sale  alongside  the  autobiographies  of 
an  ex-President  and  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  but  with  that 
gangster  in  prison  the  glamour  of  the  outlaw  has  passed  away, 
The  present  seriousness  may  be  due  to  the  depression  which  set 
in  during  1929  or  perhaps  it  dates  back  to  an  earlier  period,  when 
post-war  frivolity  began  to  decline.  The  attitude  of  flaming 
youth  has  been  indicated  by  the  manifest  desire  for  higher  edu- 
cation. The  number  of  college  students  nearly  trebled  between 
1919  and  1930,  notwithstanding  the  increased  severity  in  en- 
rollment requirements.  Some  of  these  new  aspirants  for  aca- 
demic honors  may  be  purely  "  collegiate,"  but  reports  from  the 
authorities  in  the  institutions  of  higher  learning  are  to  the  effect 
that  students  are  more  industrious  and  give  less  trouble  than 
those  of  a  decade  ago. 

At  the  present  time,  we  are  living  in  something  like  an  age  of 
ideas  although  herd  behavior,  standardization,  and  technicalism 
are  in  evidence  and  in  force.  The  political  and  economic  changes 
that  have  come  about  since  the  war  tend  to  make  us  reflective  and 
in  such  a  mood  we  are  given  to  inquire  concerning  the  true 
bases  of  civilization.  Democracy,  we  believe,  must  render  an 
account  and  give  a  reason  for  its  existence,  since  it  can  no  longer 
be  taken  for  granted.  The  social  consciousness  has  become 
keener  and  more  intelligent.  A  decade  ago,  in  such  a  depression 
as  was  experienced  in  1921,  very  little  was  done  to  relieve  un- 
employment, but  at  the  present  time,  when  all  classes  of  society 
are  suffering  from  deflation,  numerous  agencies  to  relieve  dis- 
tress and  provide  work  are  in  operation.  This  serious  endeavor 
to  assist  the  unemployed  may  be  due  to  the  dread  of  a  pos- 
sible communism  in  place  of  democracy,  but,  if  that  be  the  case, 
it  is  only  an  example  of  national  intelligence  in  America.  For 
the  most  part,  it  seems  as  though  relief  agencies  were  prompted 
by  common  sense  and  common  humanity.  Our  plight  is  com- 
mon; the  gap  between  rich  and  poor,  Dives  and  Lazarus,  is  no 
longer  a  great,  fixed  gulf. 


PRESENT  SERIOUSNESS  623 

The  present  outlook  cannot  be  called  a  dark  as  much  as  a 
serious  one.  The  character  of  the  times  is  usually  expressed  by 
calling  the  present  the  Machine  Age.  In  the  minds  of  most 
people,  this  means  the  mechanization  of  life  and  the  overpro- 
duction of  commodities.  Others  choose  to  see  in  the  machine 
a  more  serious  idea.  These  make  a  broad  application  of  the 
principle  that  work  is  accomplished  only  by  the  degradation  of 
energy,  as  though  heat,  like  water,  ran  down  hill.  This  bit  of 
steam-engine  logic  has  provoked  and  to  some  extent  popularized 
the  idea  that  the  universe  is  running  down  and  although  its 
ultimate  decline  into  a  universal  condition  of  energy  no  longer 
available  is  dated  forward  into  the  remote  future,  the  spirit  of 
decline  is  in  the  air.  The  extent  to  which  this  merits  serious 
consideration  will  be  discussed  in  the  final  chapter  of  this  work: 
The  Resultant  View  of  History. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 
THE  RESULTANT  VIEW  OF  HISTORY 


THE  MEANING  OF  HISTORY 

THE  FOREGOING  CHAPTERS,  WHICH  BEGAN  WITH  THE  CELESTIAL 
origin  of  the  earth  and  ended  with  the  problems  of  con- 
temporary life  in  America,  may  be  looked  upon  as  so  much 
history.  To  be  sure,  they  have  not  followed  the  traditional  lines 
of  political  history  with  its  periods,  reigns,  wars,  movements,  and 
the  like,  but  still  the  only  possible  classification  for  what  has  been 
said  is  the  historical  one.  The  first  ten  chapters,  which  ended 
with  the  close  of  the  mediaeval  period,  may  be  considered  to  be- 
long to  the  past.  The  second  ten,  which  considered  the  various 
phases  of  life  as  we  have  come  to  know  it,  are  of  the  modern 
spirit.  The  last  four,  including  this  one,  are  so  many  attempts 
to  come  to  an  understanding  with  contemporary  life  and  thought. 
In  all  these,  a  certain  conception  of  history  has  been  implied;  this 
must  now  be  stated  more  explicitly.  From  what  we  have  seen, 
we  have  learned  that  the  historical  process  means  more  than 
bodies  in  motion  and  organisms  under  development;  we  have 
seen  that  history  means  progress  of  mankind  in  action  and 
thought,  in  industry  and  science,  in  economics  and  politics,  in 
social  and  religious  life.  How  is  such  human  history  to  be 
understood  ? 

The  first  step  to  take  in  understanding  history  is  to  realize 
that  it  is  not  confined  to  the  past.  History  is  a  temporal  proc- 
ess which,  instead  of  tracing  a  line  back  of  it,  rolls  up  its  past  be- 
hind and  proceeds  much  after  the  manner  of  a  snowball  as 
it  rolls  forward.  A  historical  period  like  that  of  the  Hebrews 
and  early  Christians,  Greeks  and  Romans,  lived  its  own  life 
while  it  was  in  force,  but  does  not  fail  to  live  on  in  us,  i£  only 
by  way  of  memory.  What  we  found  in  history  was  not  the  pas- 
sage of  time  over  spaces  where  different  people  were  located,  but 
a  series  of  trends  which  have  thrust  their  way  forward  into  our 
lives.  This  is  because  the  things  that  we  found  in  history  were 


PERIODS  AND  TRENDS 

not  merely  events  that  took  place  in  some  "  then  and  there  "  in 
distinction  from  our  "  here  and  now,"  but  trends  or  tendencies 
that  keep  on  affecting  our  own  lives.  We  recall  these  now  as 
industries  and  institutions,  arts  and  religions,  systems  of  eco- 
nomics and  politics,  to  say  nothing  of  languages  and  social  or- 
ganizations. These  are  still  with  us.  Archaeology  may  explore 
a  prehistoric  cave  and  discover  primitive  tools,  unearth  an  ancient 
temple  and  find  an  altar,  decipher  an  old  cylinder  and  read  the 
record  of  a  realm;  we  also  work  and  worship  and  write  history. 
We  are  in  natural  sympathy  with  these  men  of  the  past,  even 
the  fossil  men  of  some  geological  age. 

PERIODS  AND  TRENDS 

If  we  are  to  enter  into  the  spirit  of  history,  we  must  abandon 
the  idea  that  history  can  be  represented  space-wise  as  so  many 
sections  of  human  existence  and  consider  it  time-wise  as  so 
many  trends  of  human  life.  This  will  prevent  us  from  saying 
that  in  the  past  man  had  art  and  religion  just  as  now  we  have 
science  and  industry;  it  will  lead  us  to  see  that  in  our  own  way 
we  have  the  same  desires  and  aims  that  men  had  in  the  past. 
Thus,  instead  of  taking  an  external  view  of  history  and  asldng 
the  questions  of  "When?"  and  "Where?"  we  must  take  an 
internal  view  and  meet  the  questions  "  Why  ?  "  and  "  How  ?  " 
Indeed,  it  is  just  as  near  the  truth  of  history  to  say  that  it  is  a 
phase  of  the  present  as  to  consider  it  a  part  of  the  past.  In  fact, 
we  must  regard  past  and  present,  if  not  also  the  discernible  fu- 
ture, as  phases  of  the  perpetual  present,  the  grand  contemporane- 
ity of  the  world. 

History  is  twofold:  it  deals  with  both  events  that  take  place 
in  the  space-time  continuum  and  our  intellectual  view  of  them. 
The  direction  of  history  is  both  forward  and  backward;  like 
Wagner's  Ring  of  the  Niebetungs,  as  he  composed  it,  the  music 
proceeds  from  beginning  to  end,  the  story  from  end  to  beginning. 
The  actual  course  o£  history  is  forward  according  to  the  di- 
rectional character  of  time*  but  the  study  of  it  is  backward  from 
the  present  to  the  remote  period  under  observation.  The  fact 
is  that  a  decisive  battle  was  fought  at  Cr£cy  in  1346,  at  Water- 


626       THE  RESULTANT  VIEW  OF  HISTORY 

loo  in  1815,  at  the  Marne  in  1914.  These  are  the  physical 
facts  but  the  "at's"  and  "in's"  do  not  tell  the  whole  story. 
These  spaces  and  times  belong  to  the  past  where  they  have 
inscribed  their  own  record,  but  the  meaning  of  these  military 
operations,  which  is  not  fully  realized  in  our  present,  is  a 
psychological  process.  It  moves  backward  in  memory  to  the 
point  when  and  where  the  event  took  place,  but  does  not  fail 
to  carry  a  XXth-century  consciousness  with  it.  History  as 
fact  keeps  recoiling  in  the  form  of  history  as  truth. 

But  how  are  we  to  understand  the  truth  of  history  when  the 
present  assimilates  the  past?  If  history  is  a  flux  carrying  even 
its  deposits  along  with  it,  a  true  conception  of  what  has  taken 
place  in  the  past  would  seem  to  be  impossible;  "  has  taken 
place,"  we  say,  since  the  perfect  tense  seems  more  appropriate 
than  the  past.  Now,  this  view,  which  we  are  finding  unavoidable, 
may  seem  to  give  us  the  course  of  history  but  not  the  truth  of 
it.  Even  the  channels  of  history  appear  to  keep  changing.  But 
with  the  physico-historical  fact,  this  is  not  the  case;  the  monument 
set  up  on  the  spot,  if  nothing  else,  shows  us  that.  Historical  ap- 
preciation, however,  in  distinction  from  historical  chronicle  is 
in  the  same  process  of  change  as  civilization  itself.  When  we 
raise  the  question  of  truth,  we  have  two  forms  of  verity  before 
us:  truths  of  fact  and  truths  of  thought.  Hence  we  must  keep 
asking,  "Have  we  the  correct  fact?  "  and  "Have  we  the  right 
idea?" 

HISTORICAL  COHERENCE 

In  taking  up  these  parallel  questions,  we  are  called  upon  to 
apply  two  different  criteria  of  truth :  the  criterion  of  correspond- 
ence and  that  of  coherence.  In  the  case  of  history  as  a  chronicle, 
we  obtain  a  truth  when  our  present  idea  corresponds  with  the 
past  fact,  as  whether  George  IV  was  or  was  not  at  the  battle  o£ 
Waterloo.  When  history  means  more  than  a  succession  of  events 
and  the  study  of  it  involves  more  than  a  chronicle,  we  arrive 
at  a  truth  of  history  when  we  decide  whether  the  Reformation 
was  a  purely  ecclesiastical  movement,  whether  slavery  was  the 
cause  of  the  Civil  War,  or  whether  Germany  was  responsible 


HISTORICAL  COHERENCE  627 

for  the  World  War.  In  American  history,  we  are  observing  a 
change  from  the  patriotic  to  the  more  philosophical  presentation 
of  the  subject.  Now,  that  which  guides  us  in  such  historical 
study  is  the  criterion  of  coherence,  the  coherence  of  idea  with 
idea.  We  wish  to  have  the  historical  fact  fit  into  the  general 
scheme  of  things  which  we  have  worked  out  in  independent 
ways.  It  is  as  though  we  changed  the  form  of  a  figure  without, 
however,,  altering  its  area.  Its  area  remains  the  same  no  matter 
in  what  form  we  may  change  its  outline.  The  present  with  its 
accumulated  wisdom  is  bound  to  dominate  the  past.  It  was  in 
this  sense  that  Bruno  and  Bacon  referred  to  the  moderns  as  the 
true  "  ancients." 

The  same  importance  of  the  present  in  history  appears  in  the 
way  history  as  a  record  is  written.  When  we  deal  with  the 
past,  we  are  inclined  to  believe  that  it  sheds  light  upon  the  pres- 
ent. Thus  we  study  primitive  forms  of  civilization  and  cul- 
ture, ancient  arts  and  religions  for  the  sake  of  interpreting  our 
own  efforts  toward  outer  and  inner  perfection.  But,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  past  does  not  reveal  the  present  as  much  as  the 
present  reveals  the  past.  "Why,"  asks  Sidney  Hook,  "do  we 
re-write  the  history  of  the  past  so  often  even  when  no  new 
*  facts '  have  been  discovered  ?  What  are  the  sources  of  our  new 
insight  into  past  events  and  personalities  ?  If  we  had  a  complete 
motion  picture  of  the  trial  and  death  of  Socrates,  would  we  once 
and  for  all  time  understand  these  events?  "  He  answers  these 
questions  by  pointing  out  that  we  interpret  the  less-known  past 
by  the  better-known  present  and  says,  "  The  present  is  the  basis 
from  which  we  determine  the  kind  o£  interpretation  we  must 
apply  to  the  past.*'  x  We  may  not  know  a  stone  hatchet  better 
than  the  cave  man  did,  but  we  have  a  more  perfect  comprehen- 
sion of  instruments  generally.  We  may  not  comprehend  all  that 
a  primitive  worshiper  found  in  his  rude  temple,  but  we  have  a 
deeper  insight  into  the  meaning  o£  worship.  We  may  not  be 
certain  that  we  understand  the  hieroglyphic,  but  we  appreciate 
the  value  of  the  written  record.  The  present  is  our  historical 
guide. 

*  M  A  Pragmatic  Critique  of  the  HistoHco-Genetic  Method/1  Efsays  in  Honor 
of  John  Dewty*  Vol  3QI*  ppu  i6i~i6a. 


628       THE  RESULTANT  VIEW  OF  HISTORY 

PAST  AND  PRESENT 

In  considering  this  perpetual  present,  we  are  confronted  by 
what  the  science  of  the  day  calls  "  the  time-space  continuum  " 
rather  than  absolute  time  and  space  each  existing  in  its  own 
right.    In  this  continuum,  what  we  used  to  call  "  things  "  are 
more  like  "events";  they  are  made  up  of  both  location  and 
date.    From  this  point  of  view,  all  reality  is  history,  while  the 
science  of  it  is  historical  investigation.    Our  own  course  of  dis- 
cussion, while  not  that  of  science,  began  with  certain  considera- 
tions drawn  from  astronomy,  geology,  and  biology.    Therefore, 
it  may  be  well  to  observe  how  these  sciences  in  their  historical 
character  view  the  remote  past  in  the  light  of  the  present.    In 
the  case  of  astronomy,  the  selection  of  the  tidal  theory  in  prefer- 
ence to  the  nebular  hypothesis  is  due  to  observations  made  at  the 
present  time.    The  astronomer  studies  events  in  the  skies  of  the 
present,  as  these  are  observed  on  earth,  and  further  experiments 
with  starlike  masses  of  rotating  gases  in  order  to  discover  the 
most  likely  form  of  stellar  behavior.   In  geology,  the  age-old  work 
of  natural  forces  is  interpreted  in  the  light  of  similar  agencies 
at  work  today,  so  that  "  the  method  of  geological  research  may 
be  defined  as  an  inquiry  into  the  past  in  the  light  of  the  present, 
of  the  solving  of  the  unknown  in  the  light  of  the  known."2 
Evolution  is  hardly  the  subject  of  experiment,  yet  the  mechanism 
at  work  within  it  is  a  subject  of  research  in  the  laboratory.    Thus 
does  the  present  seek  to  assimilate  the  past;  thus  do  we  proceed 
from  what  the  race  has  learned  about  the  past  to  that  past  itself. 
The  knowledge  of  nature  and  man  that  we  have  today  gives 
us  insight  into  the  less  developed  psychology  and  physics  of  the 
past.    Our  psychology,  dealing  with  the  life  of  the  mind  as  we 
know  it,  throws  light  upon  anthropology,  or  the  life  of  the  primi- 
tive mind.    Our  astronomical  observations  and  measurements 
give  us  insight  into  the  less  perfect  view  of  the  heavens  enjoyed  by 
Copernicus  and  Ptolemy,  just  as  our  advanced  views  of  geometry 
and  mechanics  increase  our  knowledge  of  classic  mathematics  and 
physics.   The  course  of  actual  history  is  in  the  forward  direction, 
but  the  comprehension  of  it  is  the  reverse  of  this;  we  go  from 
2  Pirsson  and  Schuchert,  Introductory  Geology  (1924),  pp,  6-7, 


THE  INADEQUACY  OF  FACTS 

the  present  to  the  past.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  genetic 
or  historical  method  of  viewing  institutions  like  the  Roman  Em- 
pire or  systems  like  Platonic  philosophy  or  forms  of  government 
like  monarchy  is  able  to  throw  a  light  on  present  problems,  but 
it  is  a  reflected  light;  it  is  the  light  of  our  own  contemporary 
thought.  What  we  require  in  order  to  comprehend  history  is 
something  more  than  the  movement  of  mankind  in  time  and 
space;  we  require  the  meaning  of  these  movements  —  the  con- 
quests of  Alexander,  the  wars  of  Caesar,  or  the  campaigns  of 
Napoleon.  In  our  own  day,  half  a  generation  since  the  World 
War,  we  are  trying  to  gain  a  presentiment  of  how  this  catastrophe 
will  appear  in  the  eyes  of  the  next  generation  and  the  future 
generally.  Already  we  have  begun  to  change  our  former  views  as 
to  Germany's  war-guilt. 

When  we  review  some  classic  work  of  history,  we  realize  that  it 
was  more  than  a  faithful  chronicle  of  events  set  in  a  successive 
order*  We  see  that  the  monumental  work  on  history  was  colored 
by  the  time  in  which  it  was  written.  In  the  exemplary  instance 
of  Gibbon's  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  (1776-1788) 
we  have  a  work  whose  accuracy  and  completeness  are  beyond 
reproach,  but  this  did  not  render  it  unnecessary  for  Mommsen  to 
write  his  Romische  Geschichte  eighty  years  later.  Moreover, 
Gibbon's  work,  besides  being  a  history  of  Rome,  is  a  kind  of  his- 
tory o£  rationalistic  England  in  the  XVIIIth  century.  In  the  case 
of  H.  G.  Wells'  great  Outline  of  History  (1920),  we  seem  to  have 
a  complete  and  objective  picture  o£  the  world  as  we  know  it 
today,  but  in  the  course  of  time  this  work  will  come  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  great  essay  on  the  subject  of  social  reform  in  the  XXth 
century. 

THE  INADEQUACY  OF  FACTS 

The  historical  method  that  came  into  vogue  during  the  XlXth 
century  consisted  in  factuality  and  the  principle  of  natural  de- 
velopment. It  was  based  upon  Positivism  and  Darwinism,  and 
assumed  to  be  dispassionate  and  objective.  What  it  attempted  to 
do  was  to  present  the  course  o£  history  in  the  form  of  actual 
development  pretty  much  after  the  scientific  manner  of  evolu- 


630       THE  RESULTANT  VIEW  OF  HISTORY 

'  tionary  procedure.  But  it  is  a  question  whether  such  a  disinter- 
ested view  of  historical  facts  in  regular  succession  can  give  us 
the  truth  of  history  as  this  unfolds.  "  A  visitor  from  a  distant 
star,  descending  upon  the  earth,"  says  Hook,  "  might  know  the 
chronicle  of  events  down  to  the  slightest  detail,  might  on  his 
way  down,  since  nothing  is  lost  in  the  ether,  discover  how  every- 
thing came  to  be  what  it  is,  but  unless  his  mind-set  were  similar 
to  ours,  unless  he  had  experienced  directly  or  vicariously  the 
chief  forms  of  human  interest,  he  would  never  understand  that 
history."3  In  the  case  of  those  who  seek  to  apply  the  factual 
and  evolutionary  principles,  it  should  be  realized  that  they,  far 
from  being  disinterested  in  their  point  of  view  or  objective  in  their 
procedure,  are  making  use  of  XlXth-century  principles :  namely, 
the  Positivism  and  Evolutionism  referred  to.  These  were  not 
in  vogue  .during  the  XVIIIth  century,  they  may  not  continue  to 
the  end  of  the  present  one. 

But  this  is  not  to  say  that  the  production  and  pursuit  of  his- 
tory as  these  have  ever  been  carried  on  are  in  vain;  still  less  is  it 
to  suggest  the  absurd  idea  that  history  in  the  common  sense  of 
that  term  should  not  be  written  and  read.  The  idea  that  is  seek- 
ing expression  may  be  indicated  by  saying  that  an  adequate  con- 
ception of  history  makes  certain  demands  upon  us.  These  de- 
mands may  be  indicated  somewhat  as  follows:  that  we  should 
seek  truths  and  not  merely  facts; 4  should  enter  into  sympathetic 
relations  with  the  historical  situation;  and  should  understand  that 
past  events  have  contemporary  significance,  This  does  not  mean 
that  we  are  so  to  ignore  time  as  to  blot  out  the  difference  between 
past  and  present,  a  thing  we  are  not  likely  to  do.  Indeed,  the 
absurdity  of  such  temporal  confusion,  whereby  we  think  of 
Caesar  as  speaking  a  modern  language  and  using  such  a  modern 
device  as  a  telephone,  is  a  common  source  of  the  comic.  We 
leave  the  events  of  the  past  just  where  they  took  place;  it  is  their 
values  in  the  light  of  the  trends  they  exemplified  and  the  institu- 
tions they  illustrated  that  we  would  bring  up  to  the  present*  In 
this  manner,  we  appreciate  the  Hebrew  character  of  our  religion, 

8  "  A  Pragmatic  Critique  of  the  Historico-Genetic  Method,"  Essays  in  Honor 
of  John  Dcwcy,  Vol.  XII,  pp.  163-164. 
4  Hoylaad,  History  as  Direction,  Ch.  III. 


FACTS  AND  TRUTHS  631 

the  Greek  form  of  our  science,  the  Roman  essence  of  our  law,  and 
the  Christian  atmosphere  of  our  life.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  we 
are  able  to  intuit  the  history  of  the  past. 

FACTS  AND  TRUTHS 

So  dominant  is  the  idea  that  history  is  the  accumulation  of 
facts,  that  it  is  worth  while  indulging  a  more  vital  conception 
of  the  past.  History  is  not  a  road  which  the  race  has  traveled, 
its  various  periods  so  many  milestones;  it  is  more  like  a  stream 
in  which  we  ourselves  bathe.  Aristotle  observed  something  like 
this  when  in  comparing  history  with  poetry  he  said,  "  The  one 
speaks  of  things  which  have  happened,  the  other  of  such  as  might 
have  happened.  Hence,  poetry  is  more  deserving  of  attention 
than  history.  For  poetry  speaks  of  universals,  but  history  of 
particulars." B  Goethe  had  this  fluid  and  symbolic  sense  of 
history  in  mind  when  he  uttered  that  significant  line  in  Faust, 
"  All  the  past  is  but  a  parable  —  Alles  Vergangliche  1st  nur  cin 
Gleichniss."  Emerson  sensed  it  when  he  said,  "  All  the  facts  of 
history  preexist  in  the  mind  as  laws.  Each  law  in  its  turn  is 
made  by  circumstances  predominant,  and  the  limits  of  nature 
give  power  to  but  one  at  a  time.  A  man  is  the  whole  encyclo- 
pedia of  facts.  The  Creation  of  a  thousand  forests  is  in  one  acorn 
and  Egypt,  Greece,  Rome,  Gaul,  Britain,  America  lie  folded 
already  in  the  first  man."  °  All  this,  or  the  significance  of  it, 
we  have  sought  to  express  by  saying  that  the  present  is  the  in- 
terpreter of  the  past,  so  that  it  is  only  as  one  lives  fully  in  his 
own  day  that  one  is  able  to  feel  the  trends  that  have  ever  been 
engendering. 

Since  history  deals  with  truths  to  which  facts  are  subordinate, 
it  can  become  the  object  of  reflective  thought  as  well  as  factual 
investigation.  The  trends  that  we  discover  in  civilization  can 
just  as  fully  be  turned  into  ideas  about  which  we  can  reason  or 
at  least  speculate.  This  might  appear  to  indicate  that  we  are  able 
to  perfect  a  philosophy  of  history — a  most  ambitious  undertak- 
ing; but  with  the  leading  ideas  of  civilization  and  culture  before 
us,  have  we  not  a  right  to  consider  their  general  meaning?  la 
*  Potties,  tr.  Buckley,  Ch»  IX.  fl  Essay  on  History. 


632       THE  RESULTANT  VIEW  OF  HISTORY 

taking  up  such  a  task,  we  receive  preliminary  encouragement 
from  the  fact  that  history  exists  in  Time,  We  may  not  be  able 
to  understand  the  complete  nature  of  the  temporal  process,  but 
we  know  that  it  moves  onward  like  a  stream  and  exerts  a  force 
capable  of  changing  all  that  is  in  that  stream.  We  may  imagine 
that  we  are  able  to  draw  certain  things  out  of  the  time-stream 
and  place  them  on  some  sort  of  terra  -fir ma.  We  attempt  this 
when  we  date  and  locate  a  historical  period  like  that  of  the 
Roman  Empire  or  lay  down  the  fixed  principle  of  a  science 
such  as  geometry  or  divide  the  history  of  culture  into  periods 
o£  ancient  and  modern.  Yet,  after  we  have  considered  the 
nature  of  both  the  historical  process  and  the  events  that  take 
place  in  it,  we  are  inclined  to  feel  that  empires,  sciences,  and 
historical  periods  as  we  have  formulated  them  are  like  rafts  float- 
ing along  on  the  stream  of  history.  They  maintain  their  form, 
their  integrity,  but  still  do  not  fail  to  move  onward  in  the 
flux. 

HISTORICAL  METHODS 

How  can  we  smooth  out  the  irregular  course  of  a  human  his- 
tory which  exhibits  such  a  multitude  of  facts  and  variety  of 
forms?  The  task  might  seem  hopeless,  but  the  usual  procedure 
in  philosophy  of  history  makes  the  matter  suspiciously  simple. 
This  procedure  consists  in  something  that  looks  like  drawing 
imaginary  lines  of  latitude  and  longitude  over  the  revolving, 
moving  globe  of  history,  whereon  are  actually  found,  not  only 
the  sharp  distinction  between  sea  and  land,  but  the  endless 
variety  of  geographical  forms.  The  lines  of  latitude  and  longi- 
tude enable  us  to  keep  our  bearings,  but  do  not  so  thoroughly 
aid  us  in  determining  what  actually  exists  and  happens  within 
such  a  mathematical  framework.  But,  of  course,  the  philosophy 
of  history  does  not  attempt  anything  really  analogous  to  what 
we  have  just  indicated  in  connection  with  theoretical  geography; 
it  navigates,  if  we  may  so  say,  by  other  means  than  those  of 
imaginary  lines.  Nevertheless,  the  linear  method  is  the  one  that 
the  philosophy  of  history  uses,  whence  comes  its  unusual  sim- 
plicity. 

The  lines  of  history  arc  drawn  in  four  forms-— straight,  cir* 


THE  LINEAR  METHOD  £33 

cular,  pendular,  and  spiral.  When  the  linear  method  is  fol- 
lowed, it  does  not  require  us  to  believe  that  the  course  of  his- 
tory is  in  a  straight  line,  but  only  that  its  general  direction  is 
a  forward  one.  A  road  will  have  to  follow  the  configurations 
of  the  land  and  thus  move  in  and  out,  up  and  down,  but  still 
it  progresses  to  some  remote  point.  The  circular  method  does 
not  necessitate  history  to  exemplify  the  form  of  a  geometrical 
figure;  all  that  is  requisite  to  fulfill  the  demands  of  the  theory 
is  that  the  object,  which  is  civilization,  shall  return  to  its  source. 
A  planet  does  not  move  in  a  circular  orbit  or  even  in  a  perfectly 
elliptical  one,  but  it  does  resume  its  original  position.  The 
pendular  method  is  the  linear  one  doubling  upon  itself.  Its 
movement  is  that  of  forward-backward.  Yet  this  oscillation  is 
not  an  exact  reproduction  of  the  pendulum's  behavior,  which 
follows  the  law  of  equal  time,  or  isochronism.  The  significant 
idea  is  that  of  retreat,  or  return.  In  the  case  of  the  spiral  method, 
which  is  partly  circular  and  partly  pendular,  the  idea  involved  is 
that  of  a  return  to  the  original  position,  but  upon  a  higher  level. 
Each  of  these  four  views  must  be  analyzed  and,  as  far  as  possible, 
adjusted  to  actual  history. 

THE  LINEAR  METHOD 

The  linear  method  is  the  most  attractive  and  most  obvious. 
Time  seems  like  a  stream  which  moves  forward  carrying  in- 
dividuals, nations,  and  events  along  with  it,  If  we  consider  a 
certain  portion  of  time,  for  example  one's  own  generation,  or  a 
larger  but  still  limited  period  like  that  of  American  history,  it 
does  seem  as  though  the  course  of  things  were  progressive;  from 
small  to  large,  from  simple  to  complex,  from  ignorance  to  knowl- 
edge. The  life  of  an  individual  or  a  nation  as  lived  is  thought 
of  as  something  progressing  along  a  relatively  straight  line.  But 
if  in  maturity  that  individual  looks  both  backward  and  forward, 
he  will  observe  that  the  next  generation  is  repeating  the  general 
plan  of  his  own  life.  Likewise  with  a  nation;  a  Greek  like  Po- 
lybius  will  see  Rome  repeating  certain  features  of  Greek  life;  a 
modern  historian  like  Mommsen  will  observe  the  Roman  trend 
in  German  life.  Yet  the  linear  method  will  always  impress  one 


THE  RESULTANT  VIEW  OF  HISTORY 

as  containing  a  part,  at  least,  of  the  general  plan  of  history* 
But  this  method  involves  something  more  than  a  forward 
movement. 

It  involves  the  idea  of  progress  in  the  sense  of  something 
cumulative.  The  present  inherits  the  past,  adds  its  own  con- 
tribution, and  passes  the  whole  amount  on  to  the  approaching 
future.  In  this  sense,  the  linear  method  is  optimistic.  It  has 
appealed  to  widely  divergent  types  of  mind  —  the  extremely 
religious  and  the  scientific.  Accordingly,  we  find  this  historical 
method  upheld  by  such  different  pairs  of  thinkers  as  St.  Augus- 
tine and  Bossuet,  Comte  and  Spencer.  Their  respective  ideas  are 
those  of  revelation  and  evolution,  the  unfolding  of  a  divine 
plan  or  the  development  of  a  natural  program.  In  both  phases 
o£  this  linear  method,  we  find  the  principle  of  gradual  ac- 
cumulation, but  not  that  alone;  we  find  the  idea  of  consumma- 
tion. There  is  a  remote  goal  toward  which  all  historical  move- 
ment is  tending.  With  St.  Augustine,  this  was  a  divine  realm, 
or  the  City  of  God;  with  Spencer,  it  was  a  human  order  in  the 
form  of  a  perfect  Social  State. 

When,  now,  we  take  this  view  out  of  its  theoretical  setting  and 
use  it  as  a  guide  in  the  interpretation  of  history,  what  do  we 
find?  Generally  that  it  is  the  historical  view  of  the  western 
world.  The  Hebrews,  although  of  oriental  origin,  have  adapted 
themselves  to  the  Occident  and  in  the  Hebrew  consciousness  we 
find  a  distinct  futurism  dating  as  far  back  as  the  days  of  Abra- 
ham. He  and  his  seed  were  to  inherit  the  Promised  Land, 
and  the  scepter  was  not  to  depart  from  Judah  or  a  lawgiver 
from  between  its  feet  until  Shiloh  had  come.  The  kingdom 
that  was  established  later  on  was  to  be  a  perpetual  one  moving 
onward  until  the  time  of  the  New  Jerusalem.  The  Christian 
conception  was  hardly  different  in  plan  from  this,  except  that 
it  was  less  earthly  and  turned  human  gaze  forward  toward 
the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  or  to  the  Last  Judgment. 
The  Latin  mind  may  not  have  thought  of  the  Empire  in  just 
this  manner,  but  it  did  not  proceed  with  the  idea  that  its  develop- 
ment was  to  be  followed  by  decline.  The  Latin  mind  acted 
rather  than  thought,  and  in  so  doing  made  plans  for  aft  indefi- 
nite future. 


THE  CIRCULAR  METHOD  635 

THE  CIRCULAR  METHOD 

The  circular  method  of  history  is  more  after  the  manner  of 
the  Orient  than  the  Occident;  it  is  exemplified  best  by  the 
Sanskrit  mind  in  connection  with  Brahmanism.  Nevertheless, 
the  circular  method  is  involved  at  times  in  the  linear.  For  it  is 
hardly  possible  to  think  of  a  line  of  progress  as  continuing  to  in- 
finity or  even  ad  indefinitum,  and  since  progress,  or  movement, 
must  persist,  the  course  of  things  tends  to  return  to  its  starting- 
point  and  thus  round  out  a  circle  of  movement.  In  both  Bibli- 
cal and  pagan  conceptions  of  history,  this  roundabout  regressus 
appears  in  the  form  of  a  return  to  something  like  the  original 
Eden  or  the  Golden  Age.  In  this  manner,  history  completes  a 
cycle  of  all  possibilities  and  unites  the  Alpha  with  the  Omega. 

India  furnishes  the  most  complete  example  of  the  circular 
method  of  history  if  the  cycle  in  question  can  be  called  history. 
In  its  own  national  history  from  about  2000  B.C.  to  1000  A.D.,  the 
history  of  India  yields  almost  no  dates,  although  Buddha  was 
reputed  to  have  been  born  557  B.C.  and  in  244  B.C.  King  Asoka 
convened  the  third  Buddhist  council  and  adopted  the  "Asoka 
Canon  "  of  Buddhistic  writings.  However,  there  is  a  suggestion 
of  historical  movement  in  the  activities  of  the  Brahma,  Vishnu, 
and  Siva  —  creator,  preserver,  and  destroyer  of  the  world,  al- 
though the  Brahman  does  not  indicate  by  what  cosmic  and  his- 
torical processes  this  circular  course  of  things  comes  about 
Buddhism  afforded  a  somewhat  closer  approach  to  the  historical, 
although  not  in  our  sense  of  that  term,  when  it  introduced  the 
principle  of  Transmigration,  whereby  the  human  soul  in  making 
its  earthly  passage  to  Nirvana  was  compelled  to  pass  through 
various  forms  of  earthly  existence  until  it  had  extinguished  de- 
sire and  achieved  the  wisdom  of  life. 

The  Greek  mind  did  not  rejoice  in  a  deep  historical  sense  but 
tended  to  live  in  a  beautiful  present  forgetful  of  the  past  and 
as  oblivious  of  the  future,  Its  art  and  philosophy  seem  to  have 
been  timeless  things  deliberately  made  rather  than  slowly  evolved. 
Yet  in  Heraclitus  and  Empedoclcs  we  find  the  principles  of 
historical  thought  — the  Flux  of  the  one  and  the  principle  of 
Recurrence  in  the  other,  The  Flux  of  Heraclitus  was  not  a 


THE  RESULTANT  VIEW  OF  HISTORY 

smooth  evolution  but  something  characterized  by  contradiction 
and  strife,  as  also  by  the  union  of  opposites;  moreover,  it  promised 
no  culminations.    Empedocles  had  a  more  definite  plan  in  his 
principle  of  constructive  Love  and  destructive  Hate  among  the 
elements  of  the  world,  whereby  the  Many  become  One  only  to  be 
broken  up  again  into  the  inchoate  Many.    "  Thus  inasmuch  as 
One  has  been  wont  to  arise  out  of  Many  and  again  with  the 
separation  of  the  One  the  Many  arise,  so  things  are  continually 
coming  into  being  and  there  is  no  fixed  age  for  them;  and  further 
inasmuch  as  the  elements  never   cease   changing  places   con- 
tinually, so  they  always  exist  within  an  immovable  circle."7 
Yet  this  was  pure  philosophy  rather  than  philosophy  of  history. 
The  cyclical  conception  of  actual  history  occurred, to  Polybius 
(c,  204-122  B.C.)  in  connection  with  the  study  that  he  as  a  Greek 
made  of  the  Roman  Empire.    It  was  his  immediate  aim  to  show 
how  all  the  civilized  nations  of  the  world  had  fallen  under  the 
domination  of  Rome,  but  the  result  was  to  delineate  a  universal 
idea  of  history.    According  to  Polybius,  mankind  began  its 
history  in  a  pre-political  condition  not  unlike  that  indicated  by 
the  modern  idea  of  the  State  of  Nature;  to  this  primitive  con- 
dition, by  reason  of  calamity,  man  tends  to  return.    The  in- 
habitants of  the  primitive  social  order  submitted  to  the  rule  of  the 
strongest  and  formed  a  political  monarchy  based  upon  force. 
When  the  ideals  of  justice  and  political  responsibility  developed, 
the  monarchy  assumed  a  more  ethical  form  and  the  natural 
monarch  was  esteemed  king.    But  when  the  king  became  des- 
potic, he  was  supplanted  by  wise  and  virtuous  leaders  who 
formed  an  aristocracy  which,  upon  its  degradation,  sank  into 
an  oligarchy  and  then  degraded  itself  into  the  low  democracy  of 
mob-rule.   This  brought  the  nation  back  to  its  original  condition 
of  nature,  prepared  the  way  for  a  new  despot,  and  inaugurated 
another  cycle  of  the  same  sort.8    Such  a  view  of  history  is 
popular  with  pessimists.    We  observe  it  in  such  a  mysterious 
poem  as  William  Blake's  The  Mental  Traveller  as  interpreted 
by  William  M.  Rossetti,  as  also  in  The  Isle  of  Penguins  by  the 
late  Anatole  France.    The  circular  method  of  history  is  likely  to 

7  Fairbanks,  First  Philosophers  of  Greece,  p.  167. 

8  Cf.  Dunning,  History  of  Political  Theories,  Vol  I»  Ch.  IV,  $  4, 


THE  PENDULAR  METHOD 

become  popular  at  the  present  time  with  peace  following  war 
and  suggesting  further  warfare. 


THE  PENDULAR  METHOD 

The  pendular  method  of  history  follows  upon  the  circular 
about  as  the  latter  was  found  in  a  certain  turn  of  the  linear. 
But  the  notion  that  history  moves  around  in  a  vast  circle  or  that 
it  swings  back  and  forth  monotonously  is  distinctly  oriental. 
Nevertheless,  most  of  us  tend  to  apply  the  pendular  method 
at  times,  as  we  observe  how,  like  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  tide, 
depression,  defeat,  and  the  like  are  wont  to  follow  prosperity 
and  victory.  It  is  as  though  a  certain  balance  were  maintained 
or  as  though  a  principle  of  compensation  so  worked  as  to 
prevent  a  perpetual  rise  in  the  tide  of  human  affairs,  as  also 
to  promise  a  pessimistic  people  something  better  in  the  future. 
During  the  XXth  century  and  more  poignantly  at  the  present 
time,  we  are  witnessing  what  appears  to  be  a  demonstration  of 
the  pendular  principle.  Meanwhile,  we  are  waiting  for  the 
same  pendulum,  which  has  gone  to  the  extreme  of  depression, 
to  swing  back  to  a  more  prosperous  condition  of  things. 

The  classic  expression  of  this  method  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Yi~King>  or  Eoo\  of  Changes,  among  the  Chinese  classics.  The 
plan  of  the  Yi-King  is  presented  in  a  form  apt  to  bewilder 
the  mind  by  its  combination  of  simplicity  and  complexity.  The 
work  consists  of  sixty-four  hexagrams  or  series  of  six  lines  half 
o£  them  broken  to  indicate  weakness  and  failure,  the  other  half 
unbroken  to  signify  the  very  opposite  quality  and  state  of  affairs. 
Suppose  we  imagine  six  unbroken  lines  read,  or  viewed,  from 
the  bottom  up.  They  indicate  so  many  stages  of  progress  which, 
having  been  completed,  must  revert  to  failure.  The  interpreta- 
tion given  by  the  ancient  Chinese  editor  is  symbolized  by  a 
dragon  reposing  in  the  deep,  whence  he  arises,  turns  to  the 
field,  roams  abroad,  leaps  up,  and  then  attempts  to  fly  only  to  fall 
again  into  the  deep.  The  lesson  is  one  of  the  certainty  of 
changes  with  the  moral  of  conservatism  and  modesty. 

Or  suppose  we  turn  from  this  first  hexagram  to  the  second, 
made  up  as  this  is  of  six  broken  lines  of  weakness.  The  same 


THE  RESULTANT  VIEW  OF  HISTORY 

certainty  of  changes  is  then  supposed  to  operate  in  such  a  happy 
way  that,  having  patiently  endured  failure  and  affliction,  the 
subject  of  the  changes,  individual  or  nation,  is  allowed  to  realize 
that  the  next  change  will  be  in  his  favor.  The  eleventh  hexa- 
gram is  of  interest  in  that  it  is  composed  of  three  strong  lines 
followed  by  as  many  weak  ones.  The  implication  is  that,  as 
there  has  been  good  fortune  at  the  beginning,  there  may  be 
disorder  and  defeat  at  the  end.  The  reading  of  these  strong-weak 
lines  as  given  by  the  editor  is  illuminating:  "  The  third  line,  un- 
divided, shows  that  while  there  is  no  state  of  peace  that  is  not 
liable  to  be  disturbed,  and  no  departure  of  evil  men  so  that  they 
shall  not  return,  yet  when  one  is  firm  and  correct,  as  he  realizes 
the  distresses  that  may  arise,  he  will  commit  no  error.  There 
is  no  occasion  for  sadness  at  the  certainty  of  such  recurrent 
changes,  and  in  this  mood  of  happiness  the  present  may  be  en- 
joyed." 9  Such  a  method  of  reasoning  upon  the  arrangement  of 
lines  seems  absurd  to  us,  but  is  it  not  as  near  rationality  as  the 
present  practice  of  astrology?  Should  we  not  be  wiser  and  thus 
consider  the  lesson  of  this  ancient  Chinese  system?  In  the  in- 
flation that  came  about  during  and  following  upon  the  World 
War,  we  might  have  realized  that  just  as  much  deflation  was 
bound  to  come;  during  the  long  period  of  depression,  we  might 
have  taken  courage  from  the  thought  that,  after  the  manner  of  the 
hexagrams,  a  succession  of  weak  lines  would  have  to  be  followed 
by  as  many  strong  ones. 

THE  SPIRAL  METHOD 

The  spiral  method  of  history  tends  to  embrace  all  the  others. 
It  is  linear  in  that  it  indicates  progress,  circular  in  the  way  it 
provides  for  a  return  to  the  original  source  of  the  movement, 
pendular  in  the  negative  principles  involved  in  a  zig-zag  move- 
ment. These  lines  are  recast  in  the  form  of  a  spiral  staircase. 
The  most  commanding  exponent  of  this  method  is  Hegel,  whose 
whole  philosophy  may  be  said  to  be  patterned  upon  the  spiral 
notion.  The  particular  method  is  the  dialectical  one  whereby 
Being  passes  through  the  stages  of  the  affirmative  and  negative 

9  The  Yi»Kingt  ir.  Legge,  m  hc< 


THE  SPIRAL  METHOD  639 

to  arrive  at  a  higher  synthesis  of  these  in  Being-for-self.  We 
may  clarify  this  paradoxical  philosophy  by  suggesting  the  simple 
mathematical  analogy  of  plus,  minus,  and  plus-or-minus  signs. 
Or  we  may  state  it  in  theological  form  by  thinking  of  God  as 
merely  existing,  then,  as  creating  a  world  as  something  whose 
imperfection  is  the  contradictory  of  the  divine  nature  and,  finally, 
as  "  reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself,"  thereby  realizing  his 
own  nature. 

How  does  this  profound  conception  of  the  world  apply  to 
human  history  ?  In  religion,  the  threefold  method  of  Becoming 
is  exemplified  in  oriental  religion  where  God  is  all;  in  pagan 
religion  where,  with  Greek  mythology  and  Roman  politics,  Man 
is  all;  and,  finally,  in  Christianity  where  these  contradictions  are 
synthesized  in  the  God-Man  o£  the  Incarnation.  In  art,  the  triad 
of  development  proceeds  from  Asiatic  symbolism,  wherein  all  art 
is  sensuous,  to  Greek  classicism,  which  reveals  a  happy  combina- 
tion of  the  sensuous  and  spiritual,  and  thence,  finally,  to  Chris- 
tian romanticism,  which  liberates  art  from  the  sensuous  and 
places  it  upon  the  higher  level  of  spirituality.  In  political  history, 
the  threefold  development  of  the  Absolute  Idea  concerns  itself 
with  the  principle  of  freedom.  In  the  oriental  world,  only  one 
individual  is  free  —  the  despot;  and  even  his  freedom  is  ham- 
pered by  the  despotic  rule  he  must  ever  exercise.  In  the  Graeco- 
Roman  world,  which  delivered  itself  from  despotism,  some  are 
free,  but  alongside  these  aristocrats  we  find  a  slave  population. 
In  the  modern  Christian  world,  not  one  or  some,  but  all  are 
free  or  destined  to  become  so  with  the  final  abolition  o£  slavery. 
The  aim  of  political  history  is  to  establish  permanent  freedom  by 
reconciling  monarch  to  subject,  or  State  to  citizen.  This  is 
achieved  by  constitutional  government,  brought  to  a  certain  de- 
gree of  perfection  in  England,  where,  as  Hegel  says,  "The 
parliament  governs,  although  Englishmen  are  unwilling  to  allow 
that  such  is  the  case." 10  The  critics  of  constitutional  government 
claim  that  even  this  form  does  not  establish  freedom  for  the 
individual,  in  that  abuses  in  the  way  of  special  "privileges "  creep 
in,  so  that  the  individual  is  free  only  in  theory,  not  in  actuality. 

10  kttetwes  on  the  Philosophy  of  History,  tr.  Sibree,  p.  474* 


64o       THE  RESULTANT  VIEW  OF  HISTORY 

"THE  DECLINE  OF  THE  WEST" 

The  most  spectacular  of  all  philosophies  of  history  is  the  most 
recent;  it  is  found  in  The  Decline  of  the  West  —  Der  Untergang 
des  Abendlandes,  which  appeared  toward  the  close  of  the  World 
War,  or  in  July,  1918.  According  to  the  author,  the  work  was 
ready  when  the  war  broke  out,  was  worked  over  again  by  the 
spring  of  1917,  but  had  to  appear  later.  It  was  translated  in  1926 
by  Charles  Francis  Atkinson.  The  most  significant  factor  in 
Spengler's  conception  of  history  is  found  in  his  idea  of  time, 
which  bears  striking  resemblance  to  the  real  duration  of  Bergson, 
although  Bergson's  name  is  not  mentioned  in  Spengler's  work. 
Time  is  thought  of  as  a  stream,  or  series  of  streams,  which  flow 
to  their  respective  outlets  without  any  of  the  stoppages  peculiar  to 
the  centuries  or  periods  by  which  history  is  usually  known.  The 
result  of  such  a  method  is  to  produce  a  new  idea  of  contem- 
poraneity. This  is  based  upon  analogies  in  civilization  rather 
than  identities  in  dates;  it  is  cultural,  not  chronological.  It  is  as 
though  an  ancient  Roman  at  the  age  of  twenty-one  were  "  con- 
temporary "  with  a  modern  Englishman  who  had  just  attained 
his  majority.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  as  though  a  babe  born  in 
Peking  on  January  i,  1931,  were  three  thousand  years  older  than 
a  babe  born  in  New  York  on  the  same  date.  "  There  is  no  history 
in  itself,"  says  Spengler;  n  there  are  as  many  histories  as  there 
are  nations  or  even  as  many  as  there  are  individuals.  There  is 
certainly  no  genuine  world-history  in  the  form  of  a  study  which 
makes  western  Europe  the  basis  of  a  chronicle  divided  into  the 
triad  of  ancient-mediaeval-modern.  This  is  only  the  "  Ptolemaic 
system  of  history"  into  whose  place  Spengler  would  introduce 
the  Copernican.12  Now,  as  a  matter  o£  fact,  what  Spengler 
does  amounts  to  more  than  a  change  in  the  point  of  reference; 
he  places  history  on  something  like  the  principle  of  Relativity, 
wherein  all  calculations  depend  upon  the  position  of  the  observer, 
who  can  make  all  the  necessary  corrections.18 

The  Decline  of  the  West  is  a  massive,  900-page,  erudite  work 
full  o£  fantasy,  penetrated  with  insight  and  abounding  in  the  most 

11  The  Decline  of  the  West,  Vol.  II,  p.  26.  *>*  lb,t  Vol.  I,  p,  03. 

"JJ.,VoU,p.  1 8. 


SPENGLER'S  METHOD  641 

varied  of  historical  phenomena.  In  every  serious  work,  the 
reader  must  raise  two  questions:  what  does  he  mean?  what  does 
it  mean  ?  —  the  author  and  what  he  says  ?  When  a  work  is 
well  written,  it  is  only  the  latter  question  which  needs  be  asked. 
In  the  case  of  The  Decline  of  the  West,  we  are  continually  in 
doubt  concerning  the  author's  meaning  and  the  significance  of 
the  historical  process  he  analyzes  so  incessantly.  However,  we 
can  gain  some  insight  into  his  serious  message  by  comparing 
his  historical  method  with  those  just  reviewed. 

SPENGLER'S  METHOD 

Spengler  does  not  follow  the  linear  method  of  history  in  pre- 
senting his  impressive  program  of  spiritual,  cultural,  and  political 
epochs.  He  is  far  too  sensitive  to  the  multilinear  directions  of 
history  to  be  so  obvious  in  his  method.  Likewise,  he  observes 
that  the  variety  of  the  historical  process  permits  of  new  begin- 
nings, that  many  rich  forms  of  culture  have  sunk  into  the  stream 
of  time,  and  that  new  casts  of  possible  cultures  may  appear  in  the 
future.  Nor  does  Spengler  show  any  inclination  to  adopt  the 
circular  method,  according  to  which  world-history  is  an  eternal 
repetition  of  the  same  cycle.  Although  Spengler  has  learned 
much  from  Nietzsche,  he  is  unwilling  to  employ  the  latter's 
doctrine  of  Eternal  Recurrence,  derived  as  this  was  from  the 
notion  that,  since  there  is  a  finite  number  of  elements  in  the 
world,  there  must  be  a  finite  number  of  arrangements  of  these, 
and  that,  in  time,  history  would  repeat  itself.  There  are  repetitions 
in  the  Spenglerian  scheme  in  that  each  separate  culture  passes 
through  a  certain  period  like  "that  of  Rationalism;  but  world- 
history  as  a  whole  knows  no  such  reversals  in  time. 

The  pendular  method  of  history,  the  oscillation  between  the 
poles  of  revolution  and  reaction,  prosperity  and  depression, 
is  accepted  by  Spengler  but  only  in  an  adapted  form.  In  every 
separate  culture,  as  the  Chinese  or  the  classical,  there  is  the 
pendular  swing  from  an  initial  period  of  rich,  expansive  feeling 
to  the  opposite  phase  of  restrictive  and  critical  thought.  But 
there  is  no  pendular  swing  between  different  cultures  as  in  the 
Hegelian  system,  where  the  sweep  of  history  moves  from  the 

S.T.— 43 


642       THE  RESULTANT  VIEW  OF  HISTORY 

oriental  to  the  pagan  and  from  the  pagan  back  to  something 
like  the  oriental  in  the  form  of  Christianity.  Separate  cultures 
can  appear  at  any  time  or  place  in  any  order  without  reference 
to  one  another,  as  we  observe  in  the  special  case  of  Asiatic  and 
Aztec  civilizations. 

Although  Spengler  borrowed  the  principles  of  his  idealism 
from  Hegel,  he  does  not  follow  the  spiral  method  which  this 
great  Transcendentalist  glorified  in  the  form  of  the  dialectical 
triad  of  Being,  Negation,  Becoming.  The  point  at  which  they 
differ  is  that  Hegel  found  a  new  culture  born  in  the  travail 
of  an  older  one,  whose  image  it  bore  or  to  whose  pattern  it  re- 
turned. Hegel  insisted  on  making  particular  civilizations  parts 
of  an  organic  whole  in  world-history  or  Objective  Mind,  while 
Spengler  finds  this  organic  principle  limited  to  the  development 
of  each  particular  culture  developing  apart  from  the  others. 
Spengler's  is  a  Goethean  or  poetical  conception  of  history,  not 
a  Hegelian  and  rationalistic  one.  The  motto  that  might  be 
printed  above  almost  every  page  of  The  Decline  of  the  West  is 
the  oracular  line  from  Faust,  "  All  the  past  is  but  a  parable  — 
Alles  Vergangliche  ist  nur  ein  Gleichniss"  As  we  shall  see  pres- 
ently, Spengler  does  not  attempt  to  interpret  history  upon  the 
basis  of  causal  connection  but  by  means  of  a  frontal  force,  a 
vis  &  jronte  which  he  calls  "  Destiny." 

THE  Two  KEYS  TO  HISTORY 

The  door  of  history  has  two  keys,  causality  and  destiny;  man 
has  tried  to  unlock  it  by  using  the  key  he  has  been  holding  in 
his  right  hand,  the  key  of  causality  which  fits  so  well  into  the 
lock  of  nature.  Spengler's  historical  method  consists  in  applying 
the  key  that  man  has  held  in  his  left  hand,  but  has  not  used:  the 
key  of  destiny.  "  In  the  Destiny-idea,"  says  he,  "  the  soul  reveals 
its  world-longing,  its  desire  to  rise  into  the  light,  to  accomplish 
and  actualize  its  vocation.  To  no  man  is  it  entirely  alien  and  not 
before  one  has  become  the  unanchored  *  late  *  man  of  the  .JB& 
gagolis  is  original  vision  quite  overpowered  by  matter-of-fact  feel- 
ing 7nd  mechanizing  thought.  Even  then,  in  some  intense 
hour,  the  lost  vision  comes  back  to  one  with  terrible  clearness 


THE  TWO  KEYS  TO  HISTORY  643 

shattering  in  a  moment  all  the  causality  of  the  world's  surface." ±4e 
It  is  only  by  intuiting  the  destiny  or  vocation  of  nations  that  one 
can  interpret  their  history,  which  is  hidden  from  those  who  per- 
sist in  reasoning  about  it  on  the  basis  of  causality.  When  we 
analyze  nature,  we  find  causality  a  necessary  principle  of  calcu- 
lation; when  we  consider  life,  we  become  aware  of  a  different 
idea  —  destiny  or  vocation.  Destiny  is  bound  up  with  time  in 
the  same  way  that  causality  is  attached  to  space.  The  difference 
in  Spengler's  mind  is  that  between  Goethe  and  Kant,  yet  after 
all  it  has  been  Bergson  who  has  made  such  temporal  thinking 
possible  for  the  XXth  century. 

When  we  apply  the  general  principle  of  time-destiny  and 
ignore  the  opposite  notion  of  space-causality,  we  observe  that 
every  culture,  or  the  being  of  a  nation,  is  organic.  But  what  de- 
termines its  specific  form?  Why  was  ancient  culture  so  sensi/ 
tive  to  space,  quality,  and  order,  whereas  the  culture  of  the 
modeaiTis  alive  to  time,  quantity^  gjuLpower?  In  the  Asiatic; 
world,  why  is  the  worTd-reeling  of  Arabian  or  Semitic  culture 
so  different  from  Chinese,  and  both  so  alien  to  western  con- 
sciousness ?  These  differences  are  due  to  the  soul  or  spirit  which 
inhabits  races  and  informs  them  of  its  existence.  As  in  the  case 
of  Hegel's  philosophy  of  history,  so  with  Spengler;  the  develop- 
ment of  a  culture  is  the  expression  of  something  spiritual;  the 
Spirit  with  Hegel,  a  spirit  with  Spengler.  This  spFrifis^a  proc- 
ess which  hardens  into  "  style,"  the  style  of  the  soul  as  this  is 
observed  in  the  Doric  and  Gothic.  Style  is  apparently  some- 
thing sclerotic;  it  reveals  itself,  as  Spengler  indicates  at  the  be- 
ginning of  his  vast  work,  in  mathematics,  in  the  very  meaning 
of  numbers.  Accordingly,  the  ancients  needed  only  Euclidean  or 
visible  geometry,  whereas  the  moderns  found  need  of  an  analyti- 
cal and  rational  method  of  dealing  with  space,  "  The  classical 
soul  in  the  person  of  Pythagoras  discovered  its  own  proper  Apol- 
lonian number,  the  measurable  magnitude;  the  western  soul  in 
the  person  of  Descartes  and  his  generation  (Pascal,  Fermat, 
Desargues)  discovered  a  notion  of  number  that  was  the  child 
o£  a  passionate,  Faustian  tendency  toward  the  Infinite."15 

**  The  Vecltoe  of  the  West,  Vol.  I,  p.  n8t 
19  ».,  p-  75t 


644       THE  RESULTANT  VIEW  OF  HISTORY 

The  Spenglerian  idea  of  "style"  is  so  unusual  and  yet  so 
illuminating  that  it  may  receive  the  stress  of  an  additional  para- 
graph. "Style,"  says  he,  "is  not  what  the  shallow  Semper, 
worthy  contemporary  of  Darwin  and  materialism,  supposed  it 
to  be,  the  product  of  material,  technique  and  purpose.  It  is 
the  very  opposite  of  this,  something  inaccessible  to  art-reason,  a 
revelation  of  the  metaphysical  order,  a  mysterious  *  must/  a 
Destiny." 16  It  is  this  destiny  which  pursues  and  overtakes  man, 
making  it  useless  for  him  to  contend  with  it.  Nothing  signifi- 
cant in  the  history  of  the  world  could  have  happened  differently 
and,  as  Hegel  had  suggested,  all  the  evil  and  tragic  serve  a  neces- 
sary purpose.  These  ring  out  like  counterpoint  in  a  divine 
symphony  whose  ultimate  harmony  we  catch  in  naught  but 
vague  and  fleeting  snatches.  Old-fashioned  theology  expressed 
this  idea  as  the  "  ways  of  Providence;  "  Hegel  referred  to  it  as 
"the  cunning  of  Reason  —  die  List  der  Vernunft!'  With 
Spengler,  there  is  a  kind  of  symbolic  necessity  in  every  sequence 
of  events  no  matter  how  trivial  those  happenings  may  appear. 
All  events  are  ways  of  the  spirit  which,  however  mysterious,  do 
not  fail  to  reveal  characteristic  forms. 

THREE  TYPES  OF  CULTURE 

The  ways  the  spirit  takes  are  such  as  to  engender  three  types 
of  soul:  the  Apollonian,  Faustian,  and  Magian,  classifications 
which  Spengler  borrows  from  Nietzsche.  These  arc  spiritual 
styles,  or  types,  to  be  found  in  every  form  of  culture,  although 
only  one  of  them  can  be  dominant  at  any  one  time,  These 
three  "souls,"  as  Spengler  calls  them,  appear  as  eddies  in  the 
current  of  history;  they  come  and  go  at  his  call  in  philosophy  o£ 
history.  In  Chapter  VI  of  Volume  I,  they  receive  independent 
and  fairly  full  treatment.  The  Apollonian  soul  is  Grecian,  it 
identifies  the  ego  with  the  body,  which  it  glorifies  in  the  nude 
statue.  The  Faustian  soul  is  western,  expresses  itself  in  the 
fugue,  rejoices  in  a  dynamic  form,  and  promotes  introspection. 
The  Magian  soul  of  Arabian  culture  is  mystical  It  appeared 
originally  in  algebra,  astrology,  and  alchemy,  reveals  itself  in 
1<J  The  Decline  of  the  West,  Vol.  I,  p.  an. 


THREE  TYPES  OF  CULTURE  645 

the  mosque,  mosaics,  and  arabesques,  as  also  in  Persian,  Jewish, 
and  Christian  scriptures. 

The  Apollonian  soul  represents  the  spirit  of  natural,  rhythmic, 
and  proportionate  expression.  It  is  the  glorification  of  bodily 
phenomena.  It  is  anatomical  and  mechanical,  works  and  thinks 
in  straight  lines  and  circles,  has  a  Euclidean  geometry  and  a 
monistic  philosophy.  Its  deities  are  creatures  of  sun  and  light; 
its  heroes  men  of  simple  motives  and  obvious  qualities.  Fini- 
tude  and  purity  are  the  principles  that  dominate  its  world-feeling; 
the  city-state  is  its  form  of  political  expression,  the  small  temple 
its  ideal  edifice,  and  the  doom  of  Oedipus  its  conception  of 
destiny.  Its  spirit  is  that  of  an  Attic  forever,  quite  in  opposition 
to  the  Christian  conception  of  the  world. 

The  F^ustian  soul  breathes  the  spirit  of  infinitude.  Fulfill- 
ment is  only  a  pause  in  a  life  of  perpetual  longing,  rest  a  shift- 
ing boundary-line  in  an  endless  Becoming.  Maternity  is  its 
symbol  of  life  and  time  its  ideal  of  destiny.  Suffering  and  sacri- 
fice arc  the  price  of  its  serenity.  Its  space  is  infinite  and  non- 
Euclidean;  its  physical  science  is  concerned  with  mathematical 
relations  rather  than  with  qualities.  Its  art-ideal  is  the  draped 
body,  not  the  nude;  its  architecture  is  the  ascending  Gothic,  not 
the  horizontal  Doric;  in  the  art  of  painting,  it  uses  light-and- 
shade  instead  of  contour-outline.  Cabinet  diplomacy  is  its  poli- 
tics, Beatrice  and  Gretchen  its  romantic  ideals,  and  King  Lear 
the  symbol  of  its  destiny.  In  its  moods,  the  Faustian  soul  is 
marked  by  brooding  introspection,  the  tendency  to  think  about 
thought  and  create  an  idealistic  picture  o£  the  world.  In  its 
practical  philosophy,  it  is  thirst  for  power  and  gain;  it  is  the 
very  soul  of  western  Europe  after  the  fall  of  Rome, 

The  Magian  soul  is  not  made  so  vivid,  since  it  lacks  the  clarity 
of  the  Apollonian  and  Faustian.  In  its  weirdncss,  the  Magian 
mind  is  bizarre  and  may  be  represented  by  the  arabesque.  It 
seeks  to  command  by  secret  wish  and  brute  force,  not  by  classical 
reason  or  Christian  love.  Alchemy  and  astrology  are  its  sciences; 
its  architecture  is  marked  by  the  mosque  and  the  horse-shoe  arch. 
Its  religion  is  Manichean  and  its  theology  a  hierarchy  of  super- 
natural powers.  Its  central  idea  is  neither  the  Apollonian  finite 
or  the  Faustian  infinite,  but  that  of  the  incomplete.  Its  politics 


646       THE  RESULTANT  VIEW  OF  HISTORY 

assumes  the  form  of  the  absolute  State;  it  appropriates  alien 
elements  without  assimilating  them.  It  is  the  soul  of  Arabian- 
Jewish  culture  in  Europe.  But  what  about  the  great  "  Decline  " 
or  Downfall? 

CIVILIZATION  AND  MACHINERY 

Spengler  contends  that  of  the  three  cultures  the  Appollonian 
and  Magian  are  dead  and  the  Faustian  is  dying.  This  he  tries  to 
show  by  an  examination  of  all  the  contemporary  manifestations  of 
this  surviving  but  expiring  culture.  The  occasion  but  not  the 
cause  of  the  mortal  illness  now  being  experienced  by  the  Faustian 
soul  is  an  intoxication,  a  disease  produced  by  the  creation  of 
modern  technics.  The  Faustian  is  being  killed  by  the  machine! 
"  Faustian  man  has  become  the  slave  of  his  creation.  His  number 
and  the  arrangement  of  his  life  as  he  lives  it  have  been  driven 
by  the  machine  on  to  a  path  where  there  is  no  standing  still  and 
no  turning  back." 17  Spengler,  however,  does  not  make  it  clear 
whether  the  end  of  Faustian  western  culture  means  the  end  of 
all  civilization.  He  himself  accepts  the  fate  of  the  Faustian  and 
feels  that  western  man  can  best  fulfill  his  destiny  and  meet  his 
cibom  by  going  down  fighting.  This  final  battle,  whose  outcome 
is  uncertain,  will  be  fought  in  the  name  of  Caesarism. 

The  general  plan  of  The  Decline  of  the  West  is  summed  up  at 
the  end  of  Volume  I,  in  three  tables  of  "  contemporary  "  epochs: 
the  spiritual,  cultural,  and  political;  these  date  as  far  forward 
as  the  year  2200  and  after.  The  spiritual  epochs  are  analogous 
to  the  seasons.  Thus  we  find  Spring  with  its  rural,  intuitive,  and 
myth-making  forms;  Summer  with  a  ripening  consciousness,  re- 
form, urban  life,  and  rationalism;  Autumn  of  enlightenment, 
city  sophistication,  and  science;  and  Winter  with  its  materialistic 
world-outlook,  megapolitan  civilization,  utility,  and  prosperity. 
The  cultural  epochs  include  an  early  period  of  elementary  ex- 
pression to  a  later  one  when  art  passes  into  the  hands  o£  the  great 
masters.  The  notion  of  the  "  decline  of  the  west "  is  expressed  in 
Spengler's  table  as  follows:—- "  1800-2000,  XlXth  century. 
From  Napoleon  to  the  World  Wan  "System  of  the  Great 

*7  The  Decline  of  the  West,  Vol  II,  p,  504* 


SOVIETISM  AND  CAESARISM  647 

Powers,'  standing  armies,  constitutions,  XXth-century  transition 
from  constitutional  to  informal  sway  of  individuals.  Annihila- 
tion wars.  Imperialism."  This  period  which  we  call  the  "  pres- 
ent" had  its  historical  parallel  in  the  Hyksos  period  of  the 
Egyptians,  in  the  period  of  political  Hellenism  from  Alexander 
to  Hannibal  and  Scipio,  as  also  in  the  history  of  China  between 
480  and  230  B.C.  That  which  may  guide  us  in  forecasting  the 
future  is  a  consideration  of  what  Egypt  was  under  Rameses  II, 
the  condition  of  Rome  from  Trajan  to  Septimius  Severus,  and 
the  state  of  Eastern  Han  Dynasty  from  25  to  220  AJ>. 

This  general  plan,  which  construes  history  as  a  year  with  its 
four  seasons,  becomes  more  plausible  when  applied  to  the  life- 
times of  individual  nations.  Their  historical  lives  pass  in  review 
before  the  vision  of  those  who  behold  history  as  process  rather 
than  as  periods.  Some  cultures,  like  the  Babylonian  and  Egyp- 
tian, have  passed  on,  reached  their  culmination,  and  are  now 
dead  from  old  age.  One  of  these  extinct  cultures,  the  Aztec, 
ended  by  violent  death.  "It  was  not  starved,  suppressed  or 
thwarted  but  murdered  in  the  full  glory  of  its  unfolding,  de- 
stroyed like  a  sunflower  whose  head  is  struck  off  by  one  in  pass- 
ing," 18  The  Chinese,  Hindu,  Classical,  and  Arabian  cultures 
are  well  advanced  toward  senility,  and  western  culture,  having 
passed  the  prime  of  life,  is  preparing  to  follow  them.  Far  be- 
hind these  other  cultures  is  the  Russian,  which  is  still  in  its  in- 
fancy, "  Tolstoi,*1  says  Spengler, "  is  the  former  Russia,  Dostoiev- 
sky the  coming  Russia," l0 

SOVIETISM  AND  CAESARISM: 

But  in  thus  dealing  with  the  nations,  Spengler  does  not  show 
any  preference  for  Soviet  Russia.  His  idol  is  not  Lenin  but 
Dostoievsky,  hence  he  says,  "  The  real  Russian  is  a  disciple  of 
Dostoievsky  **  and  "  to  Dostoievsky's  Christianity  the  next  thou- 
sand years  will  belong/* ao  There  is  nothing  in  contemporary 
Russia,  however*  to  encourage  such  a  prophecy,  The  mixed 
feelings  with  which  Spengler  proclaims  the  portents  of  western 

i*  &.,  Vol  ll  p.  43.  *°  **•'  P-  *»** 

i*  nn  p,  194, 


648       THE  RESULTANT  VIEW  OF  HISTORY 

doom  are  manifested  in  the  conflicting  accounts  he  gives  of  the 
final  struggle  between  the  Third  and  Fourth  Estates  in  western 
Europe.  These  are  bourgeois  society  and  the  mass.  Although 
Spengler  himself  condemns  the  money-motif  of  bourgeois  cul- 
ture, and  compares  it  unfavorably  with  the  ideals  of  nobility 
and  priesthood,  he  maintains  that  it  is  a  genuine  although  dis- 
torted expression  of  Faustian  culture.  In  the  mass-civilization 
that  he  conjures  up  in  opposition  to  it,  he  sees  nothing  but 
black  shadows,  the  blotting  out  of  "  every  form,  every  distinc- 
tion of  rank,  the  orderliness  of  property,  the  orderliness  of 
knowledge."  Its  victory  is  inevitable  but  it  will  be  the  victory  of 
a  negative  principle  which  must  turn  upon  itself  in  blind  fury. 
tc  Thus  the  Fourth  Estate  becomes  the  expression  of  the  passing 
of  a  history  into  the  historyless.  The  mass  is  the  end,  the  radical 
nullity."21 

Spengler,  however,  concludes  his  gigantic  work  in  a  more 
optimistic  manner  by  offering  an  alternative  solution  to  the  prob- 
lem of  history,  a  means  other  than  Sovietism.  This  is  the  prin- 
ciple of  Caesarism.  In  it  we  recognize  the  Fascist  movement  in 
Italy  and  the  ideal  that  Hitler  has  for  Germany.  How  will  it 
operate?  The  blight  of  money  can  be  washed  away  only  by 
blood  and  blood  will  flow  from  the  sword  which  the  new  Caesar- 
ism  holds  over  old  capitalism.  "The  coming  of  Cacsarism/' 
says  he,  "  breaks  the  old  dictatorship  of  money  and  its  political 
weapon,  democracy."22  Such  Caesarism  will  subordinate  the 
acquisitive  aspects  of  the  Faustian  economy  to  the  productive, 
for  its  organization  will  transcend  all  interests.  In  place  of  a  de- 
sire for  profit  there  will  rule  a  sense  of  duty  as  the  incentive  to 
social  activity.  Rulership  will  be  found  in  strong  families  which 
will  keep  alive  the  traditions  necessary  for  rigorous  and  dicta- 
torial exercise  of  power.  Such  are  the  alternatives;  it  must  be 
cither  the  Fascist  Caesarism  or  the  victory  of  the  Fourth  Estate 
—  Sovietism.  Spengler  has  faith  in  Caesarism  and  is  glad  to  sec 
it  approaching  with  quiet,  firm  step.  It  indicates  our  historical 
"  direction  ";  if  it  were  not  for  such  a  possibility  life  would  not 
be  worth  living.28 

21  The  Decline  of  the  West,  Vol.  II,  p.  358.  *»  #„  p.  507. 


ONE  CULTURE  OR  MANY  649 

ONE  CULTURE  OR  MANY 

By  what  means  is  Spengler  led  to  such  a  dire  conclusion? 
Or,  to  propose  a  larger  question,  wherein  consists  the  validity  of 
his  historical  reasoning,  what  is  its  value?  We  may  let  him  pass 
judgment  upon  himself.  He  did  not  plan  a  philosophy  of  history; 
he  attempted  no  more  than  portraiture,  which  he  has  succeeded 
in  creating;  he  has  given  us  physiognomy  rather  than  philosophy. 
Of  this  he  is  aware  all  through  his  work  and  thus  says,  4<  All 
modes  of  comprehending  the  world  may,  in  the  last  analysis,  be 
described  as  Morphology.  The  Morphology  of  the  mechanical 
and  extended,  a  science  which  discovers  and  orders  nature-laws 
and  relations,  is  called  Systematic,  The  Morphology  of  the 
organic,  of  history  and  life  and  all  that  bears  the  sign  of  direction 
and  destiny,  is  called  Physiognomic." 24  The  result  of  such  a 
"  physiognomic "  method  is  something  enlightening  but  not 
convincing.  One  may  see  a  man's  personality  and  much  of  his 
life-history  in  his  countenance,  but  one  cannot  so  easily  pass 
judgment  upon  his  character;  in  like  manner,  one  may  observe 
facial  resemblances  between  two  individuals  who  after  all  are 
entirely  different  sorts  of  men.  The  same  applies  to  nations; 
we  sense  something  characteristic  about  them,  so  that  we  can 
understand  the  spirit  of  France  by  visiting  Paris  or  grasp  the 
American  spirit  by  a  trip  to  New  York.  Moreover,  we  can  ob- 
serve analogies  between  Paris  and  Athens,  the  British  Empire 
and  the  Roman.  But  we  cannot  thereby  lay  down  principles, 

Spengler's  method  of  historical  portraiture  led  him  to  regard 
the  history  of  mankind  as  made  up  of  separate  cultures  rather 
than  as  having  one  culture  with  different  phases.  In  the  ancient 
Asiatic  world,  there  were  such  separate  cultures  in  China  and 
India;  each  lived  its  own  life  and  died  its  own  death.  But  in 
the  ancient  European  world  there  was  no  such  line  drawn  be- 
tween Greece  and  Rome,  so  that  we  find  complementary  rather 
than  contrasted  forms  of  civilization  and  such  an  ingrafting  of 
the  Grecian  by  the  Roman  as  to  produce  at  last  a  Graeco-Roman 
type  of  life.  In  western  history,  what  we  find  is  not  a  series 
of  national  portraits  but  a  system  of  cultural  diffusion  and  social 

*«  lb.t  Vol  I,  p.  100. 


650       THE  RESULTANT  VIEW  OF  HISTORY 

heredity,  or  a  Europeanized  form  of  culture.  How  could  Faus- 
tian  civilization  in  distinction  from  the  Apollonian  have  de- 
veloped its  physical  science  without  the  aid  of  Greek  mathematics 
or  its  political  constitutions  apart  from  Roman  law?  Much 
of  modern  art  has  been  due  to  the  Renaissance  as  well  as  the 
tendency  to  return  to  the  classical  idea  of  form.  If  we  eliminate 
classical  influence  from  modern  culture  what  remains  is  but 
sheep  without  a  shepherd. 

What  shall  we  say  of  that  spiritual  psychology  whereby 
Spengler  distinguishes  three  souls,  three  corresponding  cultures: 
the  Apollonian,  Magian,  Faustian?  The  idea  itself  is  inviting 
and  tends  to  beguile  us  away  from  the  drab  space-time  differen- 
tiations of  history  given  habitually  as  east  and  west,  north  and 
south,  ancient  and  modern,  this  century  or  that.  There  must  be 
some  more  penetrating  way  of  dealing  with  the  massive  ex- 
periences of  races  and  the  turns  taken  in  the  sluggish  stream  of 
human  history.  We  recognize  the  need  of  something  vital  and 
expressive  when  we  divide  history  into  periods  of  the  Oriental, 
Pagan,  Christian,  or  when,  under  the  influence  of  the  aesthetical, 
we  distinguish  between  the  Classic  and  Romantic.  Hence  we 
are  inclined  to  sympathize  with  Spengler's  attempt  to  consider 
the  essence  and  character  of  history  rather  than  time  and  place 
of  merely  historical  chronicle.  Yet  we  find  something  un- 
satisfactory in  the  way  the  Apollonian,  Magian,  and  Faustian 
souls  appear  and  exert  their  sway  in  history, 

A  NATION'S  CULTURE  AND  ITS  SOUL 

This  is  not  due  to  the  special,  or  Nietzschean,  method  whereby 
Spengler  characterizes  forms  of  culture  or  the  periods  o£  their 
regime;  our  dissatisfaction  has  a  deeper  source.  We  arc  dis- 
satisfied with  the  way  that  Spengler  relates  soul  or  spirit  to  cul- 
ture and  civilization.  If  a  soul  like  the  Apollonian  determines 
the  particular  form  of  culture  bearing  its  name,  what  determines 
the  soul?  If  this  mysterious  soul  expressing  itself  in  independ- 
ence of  any  causal  principle  determines  such  institutions  as 
slavery,  feudalism,  and  capitalism,  how  can  we  account  for  the 
fact  that  these  appear  when  they  do  and  follow  in  the  order  indi* 


A  NATION'S  CULTURE  AND  ITS  SOUL      651 

cated?  How  can  the  spirit  of  the  age,  the  Zeitgeist,  or  the  be- 
havior of  a  nation  be  accounted  for  by  attributing  to  it  a  certain 
style  of  soul  ?  When  Christianity  and  the  remnant  of  paganism 
found  in  neo-Platonism  were  struggling  for  survival  and  the 
domination  of  the  western  world,  why  did  Christianity  prevail? 
And  when  Mohammedanism  arose  in  the  Vllth  century,  why 
did  not  Christianity  prevent  it  from  becoming  a  world  religion? 
There  are  mysteries  in  such  movements  and  they  are  not  to  be 
explained  away  by  evoking  some  even  more  mysterious  soul. 

If  we  consider  this  question  more  narrowly  in  the  form  of 
centuries  which  have  their  own  dominant  principles,  the  same 
difficulty  appears  and  the  appeal  to  a  kind  of  soul  seems  to  fail 
us.  If  the  ancient  principle  of  order  prevailed  in  the  age  of 
Pericles  and,  later,  of  Augustus,  if  there  was  ignorance  in  the 
Dark  Ages,  the  spirit  of  adventure  in  the  XVIth  century,  of 
individualism  in  the  XVIIIth,  of  evolution  in  the  XlXth,  and 
technicalism  in  the  present  one,  shall  we  say  that  the  "  soul "  was 
the  result  of  the  centuries  or  rather  that  the  centuries  were  the 
product  of  the  animating  soul?  Spengler's  souls  seem  to  be 
independent  factors  operating  as  they  will  without  regard  to 
any  actual  situations  or  causal  influences.  In  the  "American 
soul/'  as  we  might  call  it,  the  ideas  of  size  and  power,  of  limitless 
progress  and  equal  opportunity  have  loomed  large  in  American 
civilization.  Even  today  we  are  still  talking  about  our  "  rugged 
individualism."  Is  this  due  to  a  mysterious  "  American  soul "  in 
peoples  who  or  whose  ancestors  were  products  of  a  different  en- 
vironment? Or  is  it  rather  something  more  causal,  more  natural 
in  the  form  of  the  practical  problems  arising  from  the  physical 
conquest  of  a  new  land  alive  with  opportunities? 

Is  THE  MACHINE  A  FRANKENSTEIN  MONSTER? 

Spengler's  method  of  confusing  effect  with  cause  brings  him 
to  his  dire  conclusion  that  the  nations  of  the  western  world  are 
approaching  a  preordained  period  of  decline.  This  comes  about 
in  connection  with  his  sad  moralizings  upon  "  The  Machine." 
The  downfall  of  the  west,  which  built  the  machine,  is  due  to 
the  fact  that  man  has  become  enslaved  in  one  of  his  own  area- 


652       THE  RESULTANT  VIEW  OF  HISTORY 

tions,  a  kind  of  Frankenstein  Monster.  It  is  true  that  the  machine 
is  a  problem.  It  provides  for  mass  production  but  not  mass  dis- 
tribution and  reveals  the  sharp  contrast  between  engineering  and 
economics.  But  the  machine  itself  cannot  enslave  man;  it  can 
be  no  worse  than  a  challenge  to  man  to  improve  his  social 
order  in  the  way  that  he  has  improved  his  machinery.  The 
problem  of  civilization  is  both  social  and  technological  and  since 
we  are  destined  to  have  machines  it  is  for  us  to  see  that  they 
work  properly,  not  that  they  stop  running;  that  they  benefit 
more  and  more  people  as  they  become  larger  and  larger  and  that 
they  be  used  in  place  of  plowshare  and  pruning  hook  rather 
than  sword  and  spear;  for  peace,  not  war. 

When  we  come  to  the  final  question  of  "  decline  of  the  west," 
we  must  admit  that  the  World  War  has  been  the  indication  of 
something  so  terrible  that  a  writer  like  Spengler  may  be  justified 
in  his  pessimism.  We  can  have  no  excuses  to  offer  for  it  and 
no  reasons  for  rejoicing  in  it.  The  war  caused  destruction 
which  the  future  must  repair  and  a  debt  which  the  future  must 
pay.  It  can  be  made  the  cause  of  an  actual  downfall  if  the 
participants  in  it  attempt  to  repeat  the  ghastly  performance.  But 
certain  phases  of  the  decline  which  might  seem  a  real  downfall  in 
the  minds  of  those  who  lived  in  the  old  order  cannot  be  viewed 
so  pessimistically  by  those  who  had  long  since  outgrown  them. 
This  concerns  the  old  ideal  of  monarchy.  If,  as  is  the  case, 
there  was  the  downfall  of  thrones  in  many  European  coun- 
tries, the  democratically  minded  person  may  consider  that  a 
cause  for  rejoicing  and  regard  the  falling  of  thrones  a  distinct 
gain. 

Finally,  we  cannot  agree  with  Spengler  that  the  dying  o£  the 
Faustian  soul  is  destined  to  invite  another  and  perhaps  final  con- 
flict, a  conflict  between  the  forces  of  Bolshevism  and  Fascism, 
There  are  still  other  forces  in  the  world.  Since  these  two  politics 
are  now  in  operation,  it  is  more  logical  to  think  of  the  world  as 
watching  their  individual  performances  and  thereby  weighing 
their  merits.  At  last  they  will  be  known  by  their  fruits.  Mean- 
while, we  might  recall  the  words  of  wisdom  we  quoted  from 
the  Chinese  classic,  the  Yi-King:  "  While  there  is  no  state  of 
peace  that  is  not  liable  to  be  disturbed  and  no  departure  of  evil 


IS  THE  MACHINE  A  FRANKENSTEIN  MONSTER?     653 

men  so  that  they  shall  not  return,  yet  when  one  is  firm  and  cor- 
rect as  he  realizes  the  distresses  that  may  arise,  he  will  commit  no 
error.  There  is  no  occasion  for  sadness  at  the  certainty  of  such 
recurrent  changes,  and  in  this  mood  of  happiness  the  present 
may  be  enjoyed." 


INDEX 


Abelard,  236,  242,  245 

Abraham,  100;  the  call  of,  101-103 

Adams,  Henry,  59,  214,  232 

Adams,  J.  C.,  329 

Adams,  Iconic,  508 

Aeronautics,  610-611 

Aeschylus,  119,  155 

Aesthetics,  Greek,  156-157 

Agreement,  Method  of,  89 

Agriculture,  feudal,  231-232;  in  Indus- 
trial Revolution,  427-432 

Agrippa,  Marcus  Vipsanius,  170 

Aircraft,  262,  6n 

Aircraft  Yearbook,,  6n  note 

Airplane,  Langley's,  597 

Albertus  Magnus,  345,  259 

Alcuin,  236 

Alexander,  pope,  554 

Alexander  of  Hales,  243 

Alexander  the  Great,  62,  87,  118,  629 

Alfred,  king,  182 

Algae,  as  earth-formers,  8-9 

A-lo-peu,  576 

Ambrose,  pope,  174 

America,  80,  83;  conception  of  politics 
in,  364-365;  industrialism  in,  445- 
448;  range  of  verse  in,  506-507; 
norm  of  value  in,  526;  life  in,  530; 
population  o£»  530;  culture  in,  565- 
568 

"American  Soul,'*  the,  651 

American  Telegraph  and  Telephone 
Building,  35 

Americanization  of  Europe,  619 

Ames,  E.  S,»  476 

Amos,  iso,  i  as 

Amphibians,  9-10 

Amritsar,  Massacre  of,  591 

Andectst  of  Confucius,  577,  579,  581 

Anarchy,  feudal,  226-227 

Anaxagorai,  136,  318 

Anaximander*  136 

Anaximencs,  137,  318 

Ancestor  worship,  43 

Andromcus  Cyrrhe8t$$»  170 

Angell,  Norman,  598 

Animality,  and  humanity,  80-82 

Animism,  42-43 


655 


Anselm  of  Canterbury,  249 

Anti-social  view,  the,  369-370 

Antoninus,  emperor,  575 

Apollo,  78,  129,  136,  192,  540,  541, 
542,  558 

Apollonian  soul,  the,  644-645,  646, 
650 

Apollonius,  277 

a  posteriori  and  a  priori,  328-330 

Apostles,  the,  69,  197-200;  see  also 
Gospels 

a  priori  and  a  posteriori,  328-330 

Apuleius,  183-184 

Aqueducts,  Roman,  179-180 

Aquinas,  St.  Thomas,  187,  236,  237, 
243,  249,  250-251,  254,  280,  349, 
351,  4°2 

Archimedes,  68,  138-139,  249,  251, 
262 

Architecture,  Hebrew,  115-116;  Ro- 
man, 176-178;  Gothic,  177,  238- 
240,  482-483;  American,  483-485 

Aristarchus,  138 

Aristophanes,  126,  148  note,  155,  400 
note 

Aristotle,  23,  39,  85-86,  87-88,  89,  92, 
128,  143,  t47,  187,  191,  234,  249, 
250-251,  280,  318,  319,  320,  323, 
333»  340,  343-345*  34$,  347»  349» 
350»  356,  367*  399-400,  63,1;  Poetics, 
156;  Politics,  344 

Ark wright,  Richard,  434 

Arnold,  Edwin,  582 

Arnold,  Matthew,  125,  192,  242,  551, 
552 

Art,  26,  37;  the  effect  of,  30-32; 
primitive,  30-33;  as  play,  32-33;  as 
expression,  34-35;  ancient  and  mod- 
ern, 322-323;  in  contemporary  civili- 
zation, 482-509;  see  d$o  Architec- 
ture, Literature,  Music,  Painting, 
Poetry,  Sculpture 

Aryan  tongue,  the,  590 

Aryans,  124 

Ashley,  Sir  William,  414 

Asia,  187,  261;  see  also  China,  India, 
Japan 

Asiatic  relations,  our,  590-591 


656  INDEX 


"  Asoka  Canon,*'  the,  635 
Astronomy,    Copernican,    4,   274-277, 

331;    Greek,    136,    138,    139-140; 

Roman,    169;    religious   significance 

of,  466-467 
Astruc,  Jean,  469-470 
Atherton,  Gertrude,  535 
Atkinson,  Charles  Francis,  640 
Atom,  the  new,  311-312 
Aucassin  and  Nicolette,  237 
Augier,  Emile,  386 
Augustus,  Age  of,  80,  541 
Aurignacian  man,  13 
Austin,  John,  366 
Averroes,  Ibn  Roshd,  249,  250 
Avicenna,  Ibn  Sina,  249,  250 

Babbitt,  Irving,  583 

"Babbitts,"  568 

Babylonian  Exile,  116-117 

Babylonians,  the,  121 

Bach,  Sebastian,  498,  546,  555 

Bacon,  Francis,  79,  86-87,  88,  89,  92, 
182,  251,  252-253,  285,  551 

Bacon,  Roger,  235,  243,  250,  251-254, 
259,  260,  267,  274,  627 

Bacteria,  8 

Bakewell,  Robert,  428-429 

Balaam,  The  Oracles  of,  113 

Balzac,  Honore*  de,  386,  603 

Bank  of  International  Settlements,  the, 
609 

Baroque,  the,  487,  547,  550,  562 

Baudelaire,  Charles,  389 
Baxter,  Richard,  273 
Bazard,  Saint- Amand,  411 
Beard,  Charles  A.,  447,  600,  6t2 
Beaumanoir,  Codification  of,  216 
Bedc,  182,  236 

Beethoven,  Ludwig  van,  504,  555 
Bel,  Alexander  Graham,  447 
B8a  Kun,  605 
Bell,  Clive,  495 
Benefice,  222 
Beneke,  F.  E.,  516 
Bentham,  Jeremy,  266 
Beowulf,  553 

Bergson,  Henri,  16-17,  2I>  24»  29-30, 
92,  257,  278,  290,  324,  475»  55i» 
640,  643 

Berkeley,  George,  326 
Berlioz,  Hector,  498,  501 
Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  185 
Berahardi,  Friedrich,  557 
Bernini,  Lorenzo,  487 
Bcrthollct,  Claude  Lewis,  443 


Bcsnard,  Paul  Albert,  495 

Bessemer,  Sir  Henry,  437 

Bhagavad  Gita,  the,  583 

Bible,  118-121;   196  et  seq.;  469-473 

Binder,  Rudolf  M.,  599  note 

Biology,  and  evolution,  467-469 

Bjornson,  Bjornstjerne,  387 

Black  Death,  the,  261 

Blaeu,  Willem  Jansen,  264 

Blake,  William,  636 

Blanc,  Louis,  411 

Block  printing,  575 

Blount,  Charles,  455 

Blount,  Thomas,  454 

Boer  War,  the,  581 

Bogert,  E.  L.,  602  note 

Bohm  von  Bawerk,  Eugene,  416 

Bohr,  Niels,  614 

Bolingbroke,  Henry  St,  John,  459 

Bolsheviki,  the,  599 

Bolshevism,  652 

Boniface  VIII,  pope,  217,  220 

Books,  see  Literature 

Borglum,  Gutzon,  486,  488 

Borodin,  Alexander,  563 

Bossuct,  Jacques  Benigne,  58,  634 

Botticelli,  Sandro,  193,  265,  489,  490 

Bourget,  Paul,  95-96,  566-567 

Bourne,  Fox,  358  note 

Boxers,  the,  587 

Bracton's  Laws,  239 

Bradford,  Frederick  Alden,  419 

Brahe,  Tycho,  276,  277 

Brahmanas,  the,  583 

Brahmanism,  462,  474 

Brain,  food  and,  15-17;  the  human, 

17-18;  and  mind,  18-20;  the  free, 

26-28 

Briggs,  Dr.  Charles,  470 
Bright,  Sir  Charles,  447 
British  Commonwealth  of  Nations,  595, 

606 

British  Museum,  the,  575 
Brooks,  W,  K.,  59 

Browning,  Elizabeth  Barrett,  384,  508 
Browning,  Robert,  385,  553 
Bruno,  Giordano,  260,  467,  627 
Bryan,  William  Jennings,  465 
Bryce,  Viscount  James,  3x5 
Buckle,  Henry  Thomas,  59 
Buddhism,  124,  188,  462,  513,  582 
Bulwer-Lytton,  E.  G,»  384 
Bunyan,  John,  554 
Bureaucracy,  Roman,   172-1 73 
Burke,  R.  B»,  250  note,  254  note 
Burlingamc,  Anson,  586 


INDEX  657 


Burnouf,  Eugene,  474 

Bury,  Arthur,  458 

Butler,  Bishop  Joseph,  375,  459 

Bynner,  Witter,  583 

Byron,  George  Gordon,  384 

Cabanis,  Pierre  Jean  George,  286 
Caesar,  Augustus,   162,  170,   172-173, 

179,  1 80 

Caesar,  Julius,  62,  87,  162,  176,  629 
Cacsarea  Philippi,  200 
Caesarism,   Sovictism  and,  647-648 
Caldcron  de  la  Barca,  Pedro,  559 
Calendar,  the  Gregorian,  169,  253;  the 

Julian,  169,  253 

Calvin,  John,  268,  270,  273,  350 
Calvinist,  the,  61 
Calvinistic  doctrine   of  election,   351; 

and  Puritan  economics,  273-274 
Cambridge  Modern  History,  269  note 
Canova,  Antonio,  487 
Capitalism,    Protestantism    and,    271- 

272;  and  communism,  620-621 
Carlyle,  R.  W.  and  A.  J.,  221  note,  224 

note 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  385 
Carman,  Bliss,  505 
Carncades,  163 
Carpenter,  John  Aldcn,  502 
Carpini,  Friar  John  Piano,  576 
Carthage,  544 
Cartwright,  Edmund,  434 
Carver,  Thomas  Nixon,  417 
Cassidorus,  259 

Catholic  Encyclopedia,  268  note 
Cato,  1 66 

Causation,  physics,  59-61 
Cavaliere,  Emilio  del,  549 
Cavour,  Count  Camillo  Bcnso  di, 

444 

Caxton,  William,  264 
Celsus,  165 

Cervantes,  Miguel  de,  559^56*0 
Cezanne,  Paul,  489,  494*  49#»  497 
Chang-Chicn,  574 
Chanton  de  Roland,  558 
Charlemagne,  62 
Chasins,  503 

Chateaubriand,  Francois,  189 
Chaucer,  504 

Chavanaes,  Edouard,  571  note 
Cheney,  Edward  P.,  439*44° 
Cheyne,  Thomas  Kelly,  47  * 
**  Cheyne-Stokes "  respiration,  141 
Chicago  Poems,  505 
Chiton  of  Sparta,  134 


China,  60;  Old,  570-572;  French  in- 
terest in,  578-579J  literature  of,  581- 
582;  English  interest  in,  585-586; 
American  interest  in,  586;  awaken- 
ing of,  587-588;  and  Japan,  589-590 

Chinese  Garden,  the,  578 

Chinese  Revolution  of  1911,  the,  587 

Chino-Japancse  clash,  the,  589 

Chivalry,  229 

Chopin,  Frederick,  498,  500 

Chords,  new,  in  modern  music,  500- 
502 

Chow  Dynasty,  the,  571 

Christ,  religion  of,  196-197;  psychology 
of,  203-204;  no  reformer,  204-206; 
and  money  power,  206-207 

"Christ  of  China,"  the,  571 

Christianity,  152,  158,  187-211,  512, 
546;  Judaism  and,  99-100;  culture 
of,  188-190;  and  Classicism,  190- 
191;  essence  of,  194-195,  469;  po- 
litical interpretation  of,  200-202, 
207-209;  the  fusion  of  paganism 
and,  249-250;  rational,  458-4595 
conflict  with  science,  464-469 

Chrysler  Building,  612 

Chubb,  Thomas,  457,  45^-459 

Chung  Yung,  577 

Church,  and  State,  174,  219-221;  po- 
litical power  of,  216-221;  secular 
power  of,  221-222;  the  Holy  Catho- 
lic, 216 

Cicero,  87,  151  note,  I59»  163-164, 
176,  180,  181,  182,  183,  184,  401, 

537*  543  .,       , 

Cimabue,  Giovanni,  237,  261,  265,  495, 
548 

Circular  method,  in  history,  633,  635- 
637,  641 

Citroen,  Andre*,  443 

City-state,  Greek,  144-148;  mythology 
and  the,  128-130 

Civil  War,  the  American,  446*  6*$ 

Civilization,  meaning  of,  50-53;  fac- 
tors in,  50-74;  instruments  and  in- 
stitutions of,  55-56;  cause  and  pur- 
pose in,  56-57;  double  task  of,  57- 
58;  and  progress,  64-65;  Roman, 
158-186;  Greek,  125-127;  feudal, 
a 1 2-233;  political  factor  in  modern, 
338-367;  sculpture  and,  4&5-"487» 
painting  and,  4 8  8-49° »  an<*  ma* 
chinery,  646-647 

Clan,  the,  70 

Clark,  James  Freeman,  474 

Clark,  John  Bates,  416 


658 


Classicism,  189-190,  538,  540-542, 
554;  Christianity  and,  190-191 

Claudius,  emperor,  167 

Claudius  Ptolemaeus,  139 

Cleopatra,  535 

Clerids  Laicos,  217,  219 

dormant,  the,  440 

Clocks,  169-170 

Coal,  and  iron,  436-437 

Coatsworth,  Elizabeth,  508 

Coe,  G.  A.,  476 

Cohen,  Morris,  277,  378 

Coherence,   historical,  626-627 

Co-hong,  the,  584,  585 

Coke  of  Holkham,  428 

Colbert,  Jean  Baptiste,  405 

Colenso,  bishop,  470 

Coleridge,  Samuel,  577 

Collins,  Anthony,  457-458 

Cologne  Cathedral,  484 

Comet,  the,  435>  44° 

Commerce,  feudal,  231-232 

Commons,  John  R.,  418 

Communication,  as  a  value,  527-528 

Communism,  capitalism  and,  620-621 

Communist  Manifesto,  the,  366,  380, 
412 

Composers,  French  and  German,  499- 
500;  American,  502-503 

Comte,  Auguste,  58,  371,  374,  375, 
376,  383,  465,  550,  634 

Condorcet,  Nicholas,  67 

Confucius,  571,  575?  579>  5^1 

Conquest,  contrasted  with  contempla- 
tion, 84-87 

Conrad,  Joseph,  537 

Consciousness,  the  liberation  of,  21-23 

Consent  of  the  governed,  the,  338-340 

Constable,  John,  496,  553 

Contemplation,  contrasted  with  con- 
quest, 84-87 

Cooper,  James  Fenimore,  568 

Copernican  astronomy,  262 

Copernican  Revolution,  the,  274-275 

Copernicus,  68,  140,  193,  236,  250, 
274-277,  279,  326,  335,  337,  466, 
467,  628 

Copland,  Aaron,  502 

Corncille,  Pierre,  541 

Corot,  Camille,  496 

Correggio,  Antonio  da,  489,  490 
Cosimo,  Picro  di,  265 
Coster,  Laurens  Janszoon,  264 
Courbet,  Gustav,  489 
Cournot,  Antoine,  415 
Cowell,  Henry,  502 


INDEX 


Crane,  Nathalia,  508 

Cre*cy,  625 

Credi,  Lorenzo  di,  265 

Critolaus,  163 

Croce,  Benedetto,  322 

Cro-Magnon  man,  25 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  405 

Crop-sharers,  231 

Cross  Currents  in  Europe  Today,  600 

Crusades,  feudalism  and  the,  232-233 

Cubism,  32,  97,  491,  494,  551 

Cubists,  the,  266,  494 

Cui,  Ce"sar,  563 

Culture,  forms  of,  75-98;  meaning  of, 
75-76;  and  humanity,  77-79;  con- 
trasts, 79-80;  opponents  of,  89-92; 
and  work,  92-93;  and  democracy, 
94-95;  Hebrew,  118-119;  Greek, 
125-157,  538-540;  Roman,  158-186, 
543-5453  scholastic,  234-258,  482; 
Christian,  188-190,  191-193;  per- 
sonal and  national,  537-538;  types 
of  national,  537-568;  Apollonian 
form  of,  540;  classical,  540-542,  647; 
Italian,  546-549;  French,  549-551; 
English,  551-554;  German,  555- 
558;  Spanish,  558-560;  Russian, 
561-565;  American,  565-568;  Chi- 
nese, 572,  647;  three  types  of,  644- 
646;  Hindu,  647;  Arabian,  647 

Cumberland,  Richard,  371 

Cunard  Company,  440 

Cunningham,  William,  414 

Cusanus,  Nicholas,  236 

Customs  Union,  445 

Cynewulf,  553 

Cynics,  63,  128,  152 

Dadaism,  97,  551 
Dalton,  John,  554 
Dampier-Whetham,  William,  274,  375 

notet  276  note,  278  note*  279  note 
Daniel,  n8,  567 
Dante  Alighieri,   189,  237,  354-256, 

260,  482,  508,  547 
Darwin,  Charles,  69,  337,  37*,  373, 

375,  468,  554,  644 
Darwinism,  336,  629 
Daumier,  Honore*,  489 
Davenport,  Herbert,  416 
David,  Jacques  Louis,  495 
David,  Kingdom  of,  112-1x3 
Davidtc  literature,  113-115 
Davy,  Humphry,  435-436 
Dawes  plan,  the,  §06 
Dayton  Trial,  the,  467 


INDEX 


659 


Debussy,  Claude  Achille,  498,  500 

Decadence,  379,  387,  389;  and  dilet- 
tantism, 95—97 

Decalogue,  the,  108 

Declaration  of  Independence,  the,  364 

"  Decline  o£  the  West,"  640  et  seq. 

Degas,  Hilaire-Germain,  496 

Deification,  of  Roman  emperors,  173- 
175 

Deism,  English,  453-454;  downfall  of, 
459-460 

Dckker,  Thomas,  554 

Delacroix,  Ferdinand,  495 

della  Robbia,  Luca,  486 

Democracy,  294,  345-346;  culture  and, 
94-95 

Democritus,  58,  137,  166,  251 

Demosthenes,  156 

DC  Quinccy,  Thomas,  439 

Descartes,  Rene",  22,  279,  282,  283, 
314,  325,  326,  327,  368,  375,  379, 
3?*»  393 

Desires,  of  the  nations,  526-527 

**  Destiny-idea,"  of  Spenglcr,  643-644 

Determinism,  58-59;  social,  61-62;  in- 
adequacy of,  63-64 

Deuteronomy,  108,  109 

De  Witt,  Wilhelm,  470 

Diaz,  Rodrigo,  558 

Dickens,  Charles,  384 

Dickinson,  Emily,  505,  508 

Dies  Irae,  237 

Dietz,  F,  C,,  443  note,  445  note,  448 
note 

Difference,  Method  of,  89 

Dilettantism,  decadence  and,  95-97;  of 
French  culture,  549-550 

Diogenes,  163  ^ 

Diogenes  Laertius,  146  note,  149  note 

Dionysus,  78,  129,  134,  i35-*3<>»  5»9» 
542 

Dionysian  Cult,  the,  542 

Diophantcs  of  Alexandria,  140 

Disarmament  Conference,  the,  608 

Divine  Comtdy*  the»  504 

Dodwell,  Henry,  459 

Dominicans,  the,  237,  344,  356 

Donatella,  486 

Don  Quixote t  559-560 

Doitoicviky,  Fyodor,  aoa,  386,  390, 
391,  561,  56*,  563,  534-5H  583» 

584*  $47 

Drama,  thesl*-,  386-387 
Dreiser,  Theodore,  3871  568 
Driver,  Samuel  R.»  471 
Dryden,  John,  554 


Dualism,  modern,  281-282 
Dues,  feudal,  228 
Dumas  fl$,  Alexandra,  386 
Dunning,  W.  A.,  339,  344  note,  347, 

352  note,  358  note,  636  note 
Duns  Scotus,  85,  236,  256 
Dupont- White,  Charles  Brook,  413 
Durer,  Albrecht,  265,  555,  556 

Ear  hart,  Amelia,  611 

Earth,  formation  of  the,  2-3;  age  of, 

3-4,  6 

East,  the,  57,  59,  262,  561,  569,  583; 
the  Near,  232,  262;  and  West,  570; 
the  Far,  584;  political  approaches 
to  the,  584-585 

Eastern  thought,  and  Western,  579-581 
Eckermann,  Johann  Peter,  580 
Economics,  feudal,  227-228;  Calvinistic 
and  Puritan,  273-274;  and  ecclcsias- 
ticism,  269—270;  beginnings  of,  395— 
397;  money-making,  397-399;  Greek 
merchants    and   philosophers,    399- 
400;  Roman,  401-402;  in  the  Mid- 
dle  Ages,   402-403;   modern  mer- 
cantilism, 403-405;  the  Physiocrats, 
405-406;  the  Economists,  406-408; 
laisscz   faire,   409-410;   the   Social- 
ists,   410-413;    Critical    School    of, 
413;  Historical  School  of,  413-415; 
Mathematical   School    of,    415-416; 
Psychological  School  of,  416-417;  In- 
stitutional School  of,  418-419;  Theo- 
retical   School    of,    419-420;    the 
"New  Era,'*  421-423 
Economists,  the,  406-408 
Eddington,  A.  S<,  2,  3,  64,  290,  298 
Edison,  Thomas  A.,  446-447 
Education,  Greek,  144-145,  148-149 
Egoism,  opposition  to,  370,  371 
Ehrenfels,  Christian,  517 
Eichorn,  Johann  Gottfried,  470 
Eighteenth  Amendment,  the,  479 
Einstein,  Albert,  97,  296",  331,  614 
Electra  complex,  128,  533 
Eliot,  George,  384 
Elohirn,  106 
Elohfot,  the,  460-470 
El  Shaddai,  xoo 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  62,  63,  247, 
3*5»  3fa»  390»  39*»  48o,  537,  538, 
567-568,  581-582,  631 
Empedocles,  137,  635-636 
Emperors,  deification  of,  173-175 
Emperors,    the    Earthly,    571;    the 
Heavenly,  571 


66o 


INDEX 


Empire,  the  Holy  Roman,  214,  216, 

219 

Empire  State  Building,  482,  484,  612 
Empiricism,  316,  326,  328,  331,  332, 

335,  m 

Empiricists,  the,  235,  326-328 
Enclosure  Acts,  British,  431-432 
Encyclopedia.  Britannica,  311    note 
Encyclopedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics, 

14  note,  305  note,  469  note 
Encyclopedic  tendency,  the,  285-287 
Encyclopedists,  the  French,  285-286 
Energy,  physical,  83;  value  and,  511 
Enfantin,  Barthelcmy,  411 
England,  in  Industrial  Revolution,  427- 

428,  432-437*  438-441 
English  culture,  551-554 
English  Deism,  453-456,  479 
Enlightenment,  the,  353,  425,  453 
Entertainment,  as  a  value,  529-530 
Eoanthropus,  13 
Eoliths,  13,  31 
Epictetus,  514 

Epicureans,  the,  152,  347,  370,  516 
Epicurus,  147;  Garden  of,  190,  347 
Epistles,  the,  195-196 
Eratosthenes,  139 
Erdmann,  Edouard,  342  note 
Ethics,  feudal,  229-230 
Eudacmonism,    85-86 
Eugenist,  the,  73 
Euripides,  145,  542 
Europe,  since  the  Armistice,  603-604 
Evolution,  19,  21,  25,  83,  262,  331, 

630;   of   man,    1-24,   25-26,   482; 

biology  and,  467-469 
Exodus,   of  the  Hebrews,   106-108 
Exogamy,  40 

Factory  Acts,  450-451 

Pacts,  and  truths,  631-632 

Faery  Queen,  the,  504 

Fairbanks,  Arthur,  636  note 

Family,  the,  70;  as  social  factor,  39; 

Roman,  r6o 

Farm,  the  enclosed,  429-432 
Farming,  see  Agriculture 
Fascism,  294,  367,  648,  652 
Fathers,  the,  69 
Faus£t  91,  504,  556,  558 
Faustian  soul,  the,  644-645,  646,  650 
Federal  Council  of  Churches,  the,  478 
Federal  Reserve  Act  of  1913,  421 
Fetter,  ^Frank  Albert,  416 
Feudalism,  212-233;  origin  of,  212- 

213  j  law,  215-217;  essence  of,  222- 


224;  economics,  227-228;  ethics  of, 

229-230;  and  the  crusades,  232-233 
Feuerbach,  Ludwig,  25,  463,  479 
Fichte,  J.  S.,  360,  388,  557 
Fief,  and  town,  230-231 
Field,  Eugene,  505 
Field,  Stephen,  446 
Fielding,  Henry,  384 
Finalism,  20 
Fire,  use  of,  13 
Fisher,  Irving,  415 
Fitch,  John,  440 
Fitzgerald  Contraction,  309 
Five  Year  Plan,  the,  367,  389,  606- 

608 

Flapper,  the,  534,  617 
Flaubert,  Gustav,  386 
Florus,  185-186 
Fontencllc,  Bernard,  67 
Food,  and  life,  14-15;  and  brain,  15- 

17 

Form,  piety,  force  and,  517-519 
Fossil  men,  12-14 
Fossils,  5-6,  11-14 
Fourier,  Francois,  411,  450 
Fourth  Dimension,  299-300 
Fra  Angclico,  193,  548 
France,  Anatolc,  15,  386,  530,  636 
Franciscans,  the,  237,  244,  256 
Franck,  Cc*sar,  498 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  272 
Frazcr,  Sir  fames,  41,  43,  476 
Frederick  II,  219,  405 
Free  Thought,  456-458 
Freedom,  and  mechanism,  284-285 
French  culture,  546-549 
French  Revolution,  the,  424-425,  441, 

510 

Freud,  Sicgmund,  97,  476,  533 
Friday,  David,  418 
Fulton,  Robert,  440 
Funk,  Wilfred,  509 
Fu  Hsi,  571 
Futurism,  35,  97,  49  *>  493,  494 

Cad  the  Seer,  The  Book,  oft  s*4 

Gainsborough,  Thomas,  553 

Galen,  143 

Galileo,  262,  298,  301,  307,  334,  335, 
326,  335.  350»  435»  4^6,  540*  54°*» 
and  modern  science,  277-279 

Gallic  genius,  566,  579;  and  skepti- 
cism, 550-551 

Galsworthy,  John,  387,  554 

Gandhi,  591,  592,  593,  595 

Garibaldi,  Giuseppe,  444 


INDEX 


661 


Gaskill,  Mrs.,  384 

Gauguin,  Paul,  35,  492-493,  496 

Gcddcs,  Alexander,  470 

General  will,  the,  362-364 

Geneva  Protocol,  the,  605 

Gens,  the,  70 

German  culture,  555-558 

Germany,  in  Industrial  Revolution, 
444-445 

Geuljpcx,  Arnold,  283 

Ghiberti,  486 

Ghirlandajo,  265 

Giles,  H.  A.,  583 

Giotto,  237,  261,  265,  495,  548 

Gladstone,  William  Ewart,  465 

Gluck,  Christoph,  498 

Goal  of  life,  the,  321 

God,  and  Caesar,  201-209 

Gods,  high  and  low,  131-132;  and 
men,  130-131 

Godwin,  William,  384 

Goethe,  Johann  Wolfgang  von,  28,  73- 
74,  90-91,  92,  95,  102-103,  in, 
125,  360,  508,  518,  537»  538,  555» 
556,  557.  558,  580,  631,  642,  643; 
as  culture  pattern,  556-557 

Gogol,  Nikolai,  562 

Golden  Age,  the,  65,  635 

Golden  Sough,  The,  44 

Golden  Legend,  The,  237 

Goldenweiser,  Alexander,  31,  36,  60 

Goldsmith,  Oliver,  554 

Gorky,  Maxim,  563 

Gospel,  the  Fourth,  472-473 

Gospels,  the,  190,  199-200,  471-472 

Gosscn,  Herman,  415 

Gothic,  the,  548,  $59»  645 

Gothic  architecture,  190,  192 

Gothic  cathedral,  the,  237,  238*240, 
482,  483*  485 

Gothic  era,  80,  238-240 

Government,  Roman,  ^  170-172;  dicta- 
torial and  democratic,  367 

Goya,  560 

Gravity,  matter  and,  309-311 

Great  Mlnnon*  The,  598 

Greece,  and  Rome*  158-159?  empire, 
236 

Greek  aesthetics,  156-157 

Greek  culture,  125-157,  538-540 

Greek  tragedy,  58,  154*156 

Greek*,  the,  29,  33,  48,  50,  58*  67,  69, 
83»  94»  *34>  292?  religion  of,  58, 
ia8~i$6;  and  Hebrews,  125-*  3,6  j 
the  classic  conception  of,  126-137; 
versatility  of,  137-138;  mythology 


and  city-state  religion,  128-130;  sci- 
ence and  philosophy,  136-137;  math- 
ematics, 138-140;   medical  practice, 
140-142;  education,  144-145,  148- 
149;    politics,    144-145,     151-153; 
philosophy,  149-151;  literature,  153- 
157;    merchants    and    philosophers, 
399-400;  language,  539~54° 
Gregory  VII,  pope,  175 
Gresham's  Law,  400,  403 
Grosseteste,  Robert,  243,  252 
Grotius,  Hugo,  332,  333,  350,  356,  357, 

358,  361,  454>  455.  457 
Ground  of  things,  the,  316-317 
Grounds   of   Rights   against   Tyrants, 

The,  339 

Group  marriage,  70 
Guizot,  Francois,  228  note 
Gutenberg,  Johann,  263-264 

Haan,  Hugo,  422 

Haecceitati,  257 

Hain,  Robert,  264 

Hals,  Frans,  265 

Hamilton,  Walton,  418 

Han,  The  Sons  of,  572-574 

Han  Dynasty,  the,  572 

Handel,  George  Frederick,  498 

Hanseatic  League,  237-238 

Hanson,  Howard,  502 

Hargrcavcs,  James,  434 

Harper,  Robert  F.,  471 

Harris,  Roy,  502 

Harte,  Bret,  568 

Harvard  Business  Review,  422 

Harvey,  William,  182 

Hase,  Karl,  200,  201 

Hauptmann,  Gerhardt,  386,  389 

Haydn,  Joseph,  555 

Hayes,  C.  J.  H.,  444-445 

Health,  as  a  value,  530-531 

Hebraism,  118 

Hebrews,  99-124;  origin  of  the,  100- 
xor,  in  Egypt,  103-105;  the  Exodus, 
1 06-1 08 ;  Babylonian  Exile,  116-117; 
and  Hittites,  109-110;  kings  of  the, 
110-1x2;  literature  of  the,  113-115, 
118-121;  idea  of  God,  122-123;  and  ' 
Greeks,  125-126 

Hegel,  G.  W.  R,  58,  189,  256,  360, 
464,  638~639»  &P,  643,  644;  phi- 
losophy of  religion,  461-463,  475 

Heine,  Heinndb,  537,  555 

Hellenism,  118;  see  also  Greeks 

Helmholtz,  Hermann  von,  6 

Hclvetius,  Claude  Adrien,  381 


662 


INDEX 


Henry  VIII,  268-269 

Heraclides,  138 

Heraclitus,  137,  150,  318,  539,  635 

Herbert  of  Cherbury,  454,  457 

Herder,  Johann  Gottfried,  58 

Herodotus,  144 

Heron  of  Alexandria,  139 

Herophilus,  142 

Herschel,  John,  329 

Hervieu,  Paul,  386 

Hcsiod,  128,  154 

Het  Loo,  578 

Hexateuch,  writers  of  the,  120-121,  470 

Heywood,  Thomas,  554 

Higher  criticism,  469-471 

Hindemith,  Paul,  499 

Hindenburg,  Paul  von,  607 

Hindus,  290,  569,  590;  industry,  592- 

**    594 

Hipparchus,  139 
Hippocrates,  140—142 
Hippocratic  Oath,  the,  141 
Hiram,  King  of  Tyre,  1 1 5 
Historical  coherence,  626-627 
Historical  methods,  632-639 
Historical  view,  the,  358-359 
History,  the  meaning  of,  624-625;  two 

keys  to,  642-644 
Hitler,  Adolf,  607 
Hittites,  Hebrews  and,  109-110 
Hobbes,  Thomas,  51,  338,  354,  355 

ct  seq.,  361-363,  368,  369,  370,  372, 

373>  375.  379,  383*  455 
Holbein,  Franz,  265,  555,  556 
Homer,  68,  126,  128,  260,  508,  537 
Homo  sapiens,  13-14,  48,  85 
Honegger,  Arthur,  500 
Hook,  Sidney,  627 
Horace,  I79»t573 
Hornik,  Philipp  von,  405 
Houdon,  Jean  Antoine,  487 
House  of  Bondage,  the  new,  448-449 
Hoylaud,  John  $.,  394  note,  630  note 
Hsia  period,  the,  571 
Huang-Ti,  571 
Huang-ti,  empress,  573 
Hubbard,  Elbert,  458 
Hubble,  Edwin  Powell,  3 
Hugo,  Victor,  386 
Humanism,  334,  453»  479~48r 
Humanity,    social    life    and,    37-38; 

nature  of,  46-47;  culture  and,  77- 

79;  animality  and,  80-82 
Hume,  David,  44,  297,  326,  327*  372> 

373i  459-46o 
Hummel,  Arthur,  583 


Hundred  Years'  War,  the,  261,  553 
Hunt,  Leigh,  384 
Huntington,  Ellsworth,  59 
Hutcheson,  Francis,  372 
Huxley,  Thomas,  465,  587 
Huysmans,  J.  K.,  390 

Ibn  Batuta  the  Moor,  576 

Ibsen,  Henrik,  40,  45,  187-188,  203, 

204,  248,  257,  387,  388,  391,  519, 

596 
Ideal  losses,  of  the  World  War,  602- 

603 

Idealism,  316,  332 
Identity,  Law  of,  315 
Ideologies,  modern,  287-288 
Ilgen,  470 
Iliad r  the,  154,  504 
Immediate  values,  83-84 
Immigration,  the  end  of,  621 
Immoralism,  388 
Immunity,  example  of,  225-226 
Impressionism,  491,  494 
Impressionists,  the,  266,  492;  in  music, 

498 

Incunabula,  264,  265 
India,  60,  393,  635;  today,  591-592; 

political    ambitions,    594;    see   also 

Hindus 

Indian  National  Congress,  592 
Individualism,  opposition  to,  387-389 
Industrial  Revolution,  the,   263,  381, 

424,  425-427,  428,  430,  432,  438, 

441;  in  England,  427-438,  433-437> 

438-441;  on  the  Continent,  441-444; 

in  Germany,  444-445;  in  America, 

445-448 
Industry,  26;  emancipation  through,  28, 

29;  and  intellect,  29-30;  old  and 

new,  424-425;  in  civilization,  424- 

452;  Hindu,  592-594 
Ingersoll,  Robert  G.,  458 
Inner  life,  outer  existence  and,  87-89 
Innocent  III,  pope,  218,  241 
Insensible  variations,  248 
Institutions,  and  instruments,  55 
Intellect,  and  industry,  29-30 
Intellectualism,  the  spirit  of,  317-319 
Iron,  coal  and,  436-437 
Isaac,  103 
Isaiah,  120,  123 

Isocrates,  134-136,  146  note,  153 
Israel,  Kingdom  of,  116 
Italian  culture,  546-549 
Italy,  57 
Ives,  Charles,  502 


INDEX 


663 


Jacob,  103 

Jacob,  The  Blessings  of,  113 

Jacquard,  Joseph,  443 

Jahvist,  the,  469-470 

Jahweh,  106,  123 

James,  Henry,  537 

James,  William,  465,  476 

Jamnia,  Council  of,  121 

Japan,  China  and,  589-590 

Japanese,  the,  42;  mind,  588 

]asher,  The  Boo  £  of,  in,  113 

Java  man,  12 

Jeans,  Sir  James,  2,  3,  335 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  221 

Jcnghiz,  Khan,  576 

Jeremiah,  120,  123 

Jevons,  William  Stanley,  415 

Jewish  nationalism,  the  end  of,  117- 

1x8 

Jews,  the,  56;  see  also  Hebrews 
Joan  of  Arc,  534 
Job,  119 
Jonah,  119 
Jordanus,  577  note 
Joseph,  103-104 
Jowett,  Benjamin,  400  note 
Judah,  Kingdom  of,  116,  122 
Judaism,  and  Christianity,  99-100 
Judges,  The  Boo\  of,  216 
Jus  natural,  346 
Justinian,  Code  of,  170-171 
Juvenal,  163 

Kan-Ying,  574 

Kaiser  Wilhelm,  557 

Kaloi  fagathoi,  the,  538 

Kant,  Immanucl,  19,  44>  1^4,  189,  194, 
206,  256*  394»  296,  297,  314,  310* 
332»  3»5»  326,  3*8,  33*»  3&>,  375> 
388,  393,  4&>,  46i,  475»  476»  5*6» 
550,  609;  Categories  of,  204;  Cate- 
gorical Imperative,  204,  321,  516 

Kapila,  256 

Kay,  John,  434 

Keats,  John,  385,  333 

Kcllogg-Briand  Pact,  the,  609 

Kelvin,  Lord,  6 

Kepler,  Johsum,  193,  3361  263,  375- 
377»  379,  a8o,  301,  326,  466-467 

Kingdom,  the  Ideal,  309-20 

Kingdom  of  God,  the,  188,  190,  193, 
194,  195,  303,  308-209 

Kings,  history  of  the  Hebrew,  m~ 
na 

Kipling,  Rudyard,  99 

Kirchcr,  Athanaaius,  577 


Kirin-Changchun  Line,  the,  589 
Knies,  Karl,  413,  414 
Kome,  the,  343 
Ktema  es  aeif  190 
Kultur,  76,  555 

Labor  legislation,  450-451 

Labor,  socialized,  382 

La  Comte,  Louis,  578 

Laissez  faire,  409-410 

Lancaster,  Sir  Ray,  6 

"  Land  of  Sinim,"  573 

Land  tenure,  213-215,  430 

Langley's  airplane,  597 

Language,  27;  the  development  of,  35- 

37;  Latin,  158,  180-183;  545-546; 

Greek,  539~540 

Lao  Tze,  571,  577,  579-580,  582 
Laplace,  Pierre  de,  2,  69 
Latin    language,    158,    545-546;    the 

persistence     of,     180-183;     vulgar, 

181 

Latin  literature,  180-186 
Latin  science,  165-167,  168-170 
Latini,  Brunetto,  243 
Laughter,  Hobbes*  conception  of,  370 
Law,  the  Levitical,  45;  Hebrew,  119- 

I2i ;  Roman,  159,  170-172;  feudal, 

215-217 

Lea,  Henry  C.,  269 
League  of  Hellenes,  145 
League  of  Nations,  the,  221,  246,  262, 

590,  605,  606,  608 
Lccky,  William,  210 
kc£ge»  James,  581,  638  note 
Leibnitz,  G*  W.,  90,  326,  327 
Leonardo  da  Vinci,  254,  263,  265,  266, 

267,  274,  489,  490,  497,  537 
Lcrminier,  252  note 
Lessing,  G.,  125,  541,  558 
Leuba,  J.  H.,  476 
Leucippus,  137,  1 66 
Leverner,  A.  J.,  329 
Leviticus,  108,  109 
Lewis,  Sinclair,  387 
Lex  drifts,  346 
Life,  origin  of,  5-7  j  process,  7-9;  and 

food,  14-15;  definition  of,  14-15; 

socialization  of,  379 
Life  of  Laxetrillo,  the,  560 
Li  Kuang-H,  574 
Lindbergh,  Charles  A,,  610 
Lindsay,  Vachel,  505,  506 
Linear  method,  in  history,  633-634, 

#3j5»  ^37»  64* 
Lippi,  Filippo,  265 


664 


INDEX 


List,  Friedrich,  413,  414 

Liszt,  Franz,  498 

Literature,    Hebrew,    113-115,    118- 

121;  Greek,   153-157;  Latin,   180- 

186;     social     ideal     in,     384-391? 

Spanish,  559-560;  Russian,  562—563; 

Chinese,  581-582;  see  also  Poetry 
Little  Entente,  the,  605 
Livy,  i 62  note,  1 83 
Lobatchevsky,  564 
Locke,  John,  51,  326,  358~359>  455» 

457,  458 
Logos,  the,  540 
Lombard,  Peter,  242 
Looms,  new  and  old,  433-435 
Lope  de  Vega,  559 
Lord,  and  vassal,  224-226 
Lotto,  Lorenzo,  265 
Lotzc,  Hermann,  54,  99-100,  516 
Louis  XIV,  577 
Louis  Philippe,  442 
Lowell,  Amy,  583 
Lowell,  Percy,  329 
Lucretius,  165-166 
Luther,  Martin,  263,  269,   270,  273, 

35o»  4^9 
Lycurgus,  108 
Lycll,  Sir  Charles,  69 
Lysias,  156 

MacDonald,  Ramsay,  451 

Mach,  Ernest,  279 

Machiavclli,  350 

Machine,  the,  432-433,  446,  451;  man 
and,  432-433 

Machine  Age,  the,  447,  619,  623 

Machinery,  and  civilization,  646-647 

Maeterlinck,  Maurice,  498 

Magian  soul,  the,  644-645,  646,  650 

Magic,  43-44 

Magna  Carta,  237 

Malhcrbe,  541 

Malory,  Sir  Thomas,  554 

Malthus,  Thomas,  407,  408,  409 

Malthusian  Law,  the,  408,  409 

Mammals,  the,  10-11 

Man,  evolution  of,  1-24,  25-26;  the 
Piltdown,  12-13;  the  Java,  12,  26; 
Aurignacian,  13,  25;  the  Heidelber- 
ger,  13,  52;  the  end  of  Creation,  20- 
21 ;  Cro-Magnon,  25,  52;  the  dis- 
covery of,  25-26;  humanizing  of, 
25-49;  emancipation  of,  47-49;  the 
Neanderthal,  52;  the  measurer  of  all 
things,  298-300;  remains  unchanged, 
313-313;  a  political  animal,  343- 


345;  and  machine,  432-433;  a  valu- 
ing animal,  510 

Manchu,  585 

Mandeville,  Sir  John  dc,  577 

Manet,  Edouard,  496,  498 

Manufactures,  432-435 

Marco  Polo,  576-577 

Marcus  Aurelius,  209,  514,  574,  575 

Marine  Corps,  the,  599 

Marinus,  573 

Markham,  Edward,  505 

Marne,  the,  626 

Marsh,  Adam,  252 

Marshall,  Alfred,  417 

Marsupials,  n 

Martin  Brothers,  437 

Marx,  Karl,  61,  360,  366,  412,  451 

Masaccio,  265 

Maseficld,  John,  504 

Mason,  John,  434 

Masters,  Edgar  Lee,  505 

Mathematics,  Greek,  138-140 

Mather,  Frank,  496,  497 

Matter,    mind    and,     282-284;     and 
gravity,  309-311 

Maupassant,  Guy  dc,  386 

Mazzini,  Giuseppe,  444 

Mechanism,    freedom    and,    284-185; 
modern,  275-277 

Mediacvalism,  see  Scholasticism 

Medical  practice,  Greek,  140-142;  Ro- 
man, 167-168 

Meinong,  Alexander,  517 

Mclanchthon,  Philipp,  269 

McndclicrT,  Dmitri,  330,  564 

Mcngcr,  Carl,  416 

Mercantilism,  rnodern,  403-405 

Merimc*e,  Prosper,  33 

Merton,  statutes  of,  43 1 

Merz,  Charles,  60 a  note 

Mctazoa,  9 

Method,  the  scholastic,  235-237;  mod- 
ern scientific,  289-313 

MicaA,  120,  123 

Michelangelo*  266,  487,  488,  490,  491, 
497,  5Q4,  547-548 

Middleton,  Thomas,  554 

Mill,  James,  366 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  366,  371*  374,  383, 
407,  409-410,  587 

Millay,  Edna  St.  Vincent,  508 

Mills,  Darius,  tfn 

Milton,  John,  504,  508,  553 

Mind,  brain  and,  x8~ao;  the  emergence 
of,  23-24;   and  matter, 
emergence  of  the  modem* 


INDEX 


665 


Mirabeau,  579 

Mirbeau,  Octave,  386 

Missing  link,  the,  12 

Mitchell,  Wesley  Glair,  397  note,  402 

note,  418 
Mithra,  174 
Moderni,  the,  253,  261 
Modernism,  259-263 
Moliere,  203,  331 
Mommscn,  Theodor,  339,  629,  633 
Monet,  Claude,  496,  498 
Money,  and  Christ,  206-207;   in  the 

Middle  Ages,  402-403 
Money-making,  397-399 
Monotremata,  10-11 
Monroe,  Harriet,  504 
Monroe,  Robert,    14,   400   note,   402 

note,  405  note 
Montague,  James  J.,  509 
Montaigne,  Michel  dc,  90,  550 
Montesquieu,  Charles  dc,  59, 358 
Moore,  Henry  L.,  415 
Moore,  Virginia,  508 
Morality,  socialization  of,  383 
Morals,  laxity  of,  615-616 
Morris,  Harold,  503 
Morris,  William,  385,  593 
Morse,  Samuel  F.  B.,  447 
Moses,  62;  the  career  of,  105-106;  as 

legislator,  108-109;  as  author  of  the 

Pentateuch»  469-470 
Moslems,  Indian,  592 
Mo  Tze,  571 
Moussorgsky,  563 
Moving  pictures,  613 
Mozart,  W.  A.,  498 
Mukden-Hailungcheng  railway,  589 
Mukdcn-Kirm  road,  589 
Miillcr,  F.  Max,  474,  581 
Mun,  Thomas,  404 
Murillo,  265,  560 
Music,  contemporary,  497-499 »  French 

and   German  composers,   499-500; 

new    chords,    500-502;    American 

composers,  502-503 
Mussolini,  Benito,  367 
Myron,  157,  486,  540 
Mysteries,  Eleusinian,  134 
Mythology,  and  city-state  religion,  n8~ 

130 

Napoleon  Bonaparte,  62,  215,  365,  435, 

44*,  442,  596,  629,  646 
Napoleon  HI,  442 
Napoleonic  Wars,  432 
Nash,  Ogdcn,  509 


Nathan   the  Prophet,   The   3oo1(    of, 

114 

Nationalists,  Hindu,  592,  594 
Natural  selection,  8,  19,  468 
Nature,  and  humanity,  53—54 
Neanderthal  man,  13 
Near  East,  the,  570 
Nebular  hypothesis,  1-2 
Nco-Classicism,  French,  125 
Neo-Platonism,  651 
Neptune,  the  discovery  of,  329 
Nero,  164 

Nestorian  missionaries,  575 
Nftv  Standard  Encyclopedia,  604  note, 

613  note 

New  York  Times,  602  note 
New  York  University,  447 
New  Testament,  see  Bible 
New  Testament  criticism,  471-472 
Newton,  Isaac,  47,  58,  182,  193,  280, 

295>  296,  307,  310,  326,  379,  406, 

435>  467*  49i»  554 
Newtonian  mechanics,  331 
Nibclungen  Lied,  the,  237,  559 
Nietzsche,   Friedrich,    189,  247,   257, 

335*  336»  5io»  542,  641 
Nihilism,  387,  390-392 
Nominalism,  245-249 
Nemos,  346 

Norman  Conquest,  the,  553 
Nous  poctikos*  320 
Novalis,  388 
Novel,  the  Greek,  156;  the  picaresque, 

560;  the  Russian,  562-563 
Novus  Atlas  Sinensis,  577 
Numa,  1 68 
Numbers,  Book,  of,  108,  109 

Odoric,  friar,  576 

Odyssey,  the,  154 

Oedipus  complex,  128,  533 

Oifys,  the,  341,  343 

Old  Testament,  see  Bible 

Omar,  576 

O'Neill,  Eugene,  35, 128,  583 

Opium  War,  the,  585,  586 

Oresme,  Nicole,  403 

Orient,  see  East 

Orientalism,  the  rise  of,  576-578 

Ornstein,  Leo,  503 

Orphic*,  the,  135 

Osbora,  Henry  Fairfield,  7,  8, 10 

Ostwald,  Wilhelm,  59 

Othman,  576 

Otho  the  Great,  215 

Outer  existence,  and  inner  life,  87-89 


666 


INDEX 


Owen,  Robert,  411,  451 
Oxford,  University  of,  241-242 

Paine,  Thomas,  365,  458 

Painting,  modern,  265-266,  491-497; 

pictures   civilization,   488—490;   two 

effects  of,  494-495 
Palcoliths,  31 
Palestrina,  547 
Palma  Vecchio,  265 
Panaetius,  163 
Pan-ku,  571 

Panthenon,  the  Roman,  482 
Paper-making,  262,  575 
Papias,  471-472 
Papinian,  267 
Pareto,  Leon,  415 
Paris,  University  of,  242-243 
Parmenides,  137,  318 
Parsival,  237 
Parthenon,  the,  34,  482 
Pascal,  B.,  189,  550 
Patanjali,  256 

Patent  Office,  United  States,  446 
Paulinism,  197-199 
Pavlov,  564 
Pax  Romana,  216 
Pearson,  Karl,  293,  297,  301,  313 
Pendular  method,  in  history,  633,  637- 

638,  641 

Peninsula  and  Oriental,  the,  440 
Pentateuch,  the,  119,  469-470 
Pentheus,  542 
Pericles,    127,    136;    Age   of,    79-80, 

65i 

Periodic  Law,  the,  330 

Periods,  and  trends,  625-626 

Permanent  Court  of  International  Jus- 
tice, 609 

Perron,  Anquetil  du,  474 

Perry,  Commodore,  588 

Persian  Mithra,  162 

Personal  protest,  the,  389 

Perugino,  193 

Pessimism,  oriental,  583-584 

Petrarch,  261,  508,  546 

Petronius,  163,  183 

Pheidias,  157,  486,  487,  539,  540 

Philip  the  Fair,  217,  220 

Philistines,  the,  in,  123 

Philosophy,  Greek,  136-137,  149-151, 
318;  Roman,  163-165;  influence  of, 
3*4-337;  and  politics,  332-3345  of 
religion,  453,  460 

Phoenicians,  tie,  290,  341 

Phusis,  346 


Physics,  classic,  279-280 

Physiocrats,  the,  405-406 

Picasso,  Pablo,  489,  494 

Piety,  form,  force  and,  517-519 

"Pigeon  English,"  587 

Piltdown  man,  12-13 

Pisano,  Niccolo,  261,  486 

Pissarro,  496 

Pithecanthropus  erectus,  12,  52 

Planck,  Max,  332,  614 

Planets,  nebular  hypothesis,  1-2;  tidal 
conception,  2 

Plato,  47,  62,  127  note,  133,  138,  147, 
150,  152,  187,  188,  191,  204,  209, 
250,  256,  274,  294,  314,  318,  319, 
320,  322,  323,  332,  338,  339.  34*- 
342,  343,  367,  399-400,  476,  539J 
Academy  of,  347;  Allegory  of  the 
Cave,  319;  Republic,  340-342 

Platonism,  209-210 

Plautus,  155 

Pleistocene  period,  12 

Pliny  the  Elder,  166,  573 

Plotinus,  277 

Pluto,  329 

Poc,  Edgar  Allan,  95,  389 

Poem  of  the  Cid,  558-559 

Poetry,  up-to-date,  503-504;  Renais- 
sance of  1912,  504-506;  American, 
506-509;  English,  552-553 

Polls,  the,  341,  343 

Politics,  Greek,  x  44-145*  *5i~*53»  339» 
340-346;  and  Christianity,  200-202, 
207-209;  Roman,  214,  339-340; 
philosophy  and,  332-334;  modern, 
338;  Hebrew,  338-339;  post-classic, 
346-348;  Christian,  348-352;  State 
of  Nature,  352-354;  Natural  Rights, 
354-356;  pessimistic,  356-358;  the 
historical  view  of,  358-359;  Rous- 
seau's, 359-360;  the  social  contract, 
360-362;  the  general  will,  362-364; 
the  American  conception  of,  364- 
365;  and  economics,  365-366;  and 
the  social  view,  368-369 

Polyandry,  38 

Polybius,  633,  636 

Polygamy,  38 

Pope,  power  o£  the,  318-219 

Popular  Mechanics,  614 

Popular  Science t  614 

Population,  census  of,  6x8 

Porphyry,  244 

Posidonius,  163 

Positivism,  629,  630 

Post,  Georgtt  B.,  oil 


INDEX 


667 


Post-classic  politics,  346-348 

Postimpression  School,  the,  496 

Pound,  Ezra,  583 

Poussin,  Nicholas,  495 

Poverty,  progress  and,  449-451 

Powell,  John,  503 

Powers,  Hiram,  487 

Pragmatism,    33°-332,    333»    334~337 

Pragmatists,  235,  256,  317,  334 

Praxiteles,  486,  488,  540 

Precarial  will,  a,  222-223 

Precarium,  222 

Present,  the  so-called,  596-597;  seri- 
ousness of  the,  621-623;  past  and, 
628-629 

Press,  the,  263 

Priesthood,  Greek,  133-134 

Primates,  the,  27 

Primitive  belief,  41-44;  survivals  of, 
45-46 

Printing,  263-264 

Printing  press,  Gutenberg's,  263-264 

Progress,  civilization  and,  64-66; 
meaning  of,  66-68;  stages  of,  69-71; 
standards  of,  71-72;  physical  and 
moral,  72-73;  and  poverty,  449-451 

Prohibition,  617-618 

Prophets,  and  the  Law,  119-121 

Protagoras,   149.  334»   539»  5^6 

Protestantism,  and  capitalism,  271- 
272;  see  also  Reformation 

Protozoa,  9 

Proudhon,  Pierre,  411,  450 

Prudcntcs,  the,  171-172 

Psalms,  Book  oft  **3 

Psychology,  as  a  value,  531-533 

Psychozoic  Era,  241 

Ptolemy,  170,  573,  628 

Pufendorf,  Samuel,  357,  360 

Pushkin,  Alexander,  562 

Pyramid,  the  Great,  482,  483,  484 

Pythagoras,  138,  274,  318 

Pythagoreans,  the,  135,  136 

Qttctdriviuint  the,  243 

Quantum  Theory,  the,  311,  312-313* 

614 

Quesnay,  Francois,  405,  579 
Quidditati,  257 

Rabelais,  Francois,  267 
Radio,  262 

Railroad,  the,  438-440 
"Railroad  Mania,"  439 
Ranke,  Leopold  von,  58 
Raphael,  203,  265,  409 


Rationalism,  316,  317,  326,  328,  330, 
332,  335 

Rationalists,  326-328,  331 

Ratzel,  59 

Realism,  316,  332;  mediaeval,  244- 
246;  today,  246-247 

Reese,  Lizette  Woodworth,  508 

Reformation,  the  German,  262,  267- 
269 

Reger,  Max,  499 

Reginald,  archbishop,  218 

Reichwein,  578  note 

Reimarus,  200 

Relativity,  262,  274,  306-308,  312-313, 
490,  491 

Relief  Administration,  American,  604 

Religion,  26,  27,  165;  beginnings  of, 
41-42;  Hebrew,  ^0-^24;  Greek, 
128-136;  Roman,  159-163;  of  Christ, 
196-197;  contemporary,  453;  Natu- 
ral, 455-456;  Free  Thought,  456- 
458;  Deism,  453-454,  459-460;  Ra- 
tional Christianity,  458-459;  German 
philosophy  of,  460-464;  conflict  with 
science,  464-469;  comparative,  473- 
475;  psychology  of,  475~476;  ^the 
Social  Creed,  477-479;  Humanism, 
479-481 

Rembrandt,  203,  265,  497 

Remote  values,  83-84 

Renaissance,  the,  48,  78,  128,  189,  261, 
263,  425,  487,  489,  490,  549;  the 
spirit  of  the,  266-267;  Italian  cul- 
ture and  the,  546-548 

Renan,  Ernest,  471-472,  473,  550- 
551 

Renoir,  Pierre,  495,  498 

Reptiles,  9-10 

Republic,  of  Plato,  209,  340-342 

Respighi,  Ottorino,  501 

Restoration,  period  of  the,  554 

Revival  of  Learning,  the,  262 

Reynard  the  Fox,  237 

Rheims,  Cathedral,  35 

Ribera,  560 

Ricardo,  David,  407,  408,  409,  411 

Richards,  I.  R,,  583 

Richardson,  Samuel,  384 

Riemann,  564 

Rights,  Natural,  455-456 

K/k  Veda,  99 

Riley,  James  Whltcomb,  505 

Rirmky-Korsakoflf,  563 

Ritchie,  D.  G,,  351  note 

"Road  Opener,'*  the  Chinese,  574 

Robinson,  Edwin  Arlington,  505 


668 


INDEX 


Rockefeller  Foundation,  530 

Rockefeller  Institute  for  Medical  Re- 
search, 530 

Rocket,  the,  439 

Rodbertus-Jagetzow,  J.,  411 

Rodin,  Auguste,  18,  487 

Rogers,  James  Edwin,  414 

Roman  Empire,  96,  236,  632 

Romance  languages,  the,  590 

Romance  of  the  Rose,  237 

Romanesque  cathedral,  the,  177 

Romanoffs,  the,  599 

Romantic  School,  o£  music,  498,  500 

Romanticism,  189,  379,  387,  388,  389, 
489;  German,  88 

Rome,  civilization  of,  158-186;  Greece 
and,  158-159;  religion  of,  159-161; 
deities  of,  161-163;  philosophy,  163- 
165;  medicine,  167-168;  law,  170- 
172;  government,  170-172;  bureau- 
cracy, 172-173;  artists  and  builders 
of,  175-178;  culture  of,  544-545 

Roscellinus,  244,  245 

Rossetti,  William,  636 

Rosher,  William,  413 

Round  Table  Conference,  595 

Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques,  51,  89-90,  91, 
95»  358,  359-3^0,  363,  364,  459- 

4t°>  579 

Rousseau,  Theodore,  496 
Rowlatt  Acts,  the,  592 
Royal  Mail  Steam  Packet,  the,  440 
Rubens,  Peter  Paul,  265,  495,  497 
Rubinstein,  Anton,  563 
Ruhr,  occupation  of  the,  604 
Ruskin,  John,  385,  552 
Russian  culture,  561-565;  Five  Year 

Plan,  606-607 
Rutherford,  Sir  Ernest,  554 

Sachscnspiegel,  216 

Sacred  Boo\s  of  the  "East,  474 

Sacrifices,  Greek,  131-132 

Sagitta,  9 

St.  Ambrose,  153 

St.  Augustine,  58,  153,  187,  191,  349, 

256*  270,  349,  365,  634 
St.  Francis  d'Assisi,  189,  28*1 
Saint-Gaudens,  Augustus,  488 
St.  Paul,  67,  69,  1 8 8,  191,  204 
St,  Paul's,  in  London,  482 
St.  Peter's,  in  Rome,  35,  482 
Saint-Simon,  Henri  de,  411,  450 
Salter,  Sir  Arthur,  422-423 
Samson,  no 
Samuel,  no,  xix-xia 


Samuel  the  Seer,  The  Boo\  of,  114 

Sandburg,  Carl,  505 

Sankhya,  the,  318 

Sankhyam  school,  256 

Sapientia  Sinica,  577 

Saplings,  507 

Sappho,  154,  508 

Sargon,  116 

Satire,  Roman,  184-186 

Saul,  in 

Saussaye,  P.  D.  C.  de,  474 

Schiller,  Friedrich  von,  31,  128,  359, 
54i,  557,  558 

Schlegel,  Friedrich,  388,  390 

Schleicrmacher,  189,  460,  464,  475 

Schmoller,  Gustav  von,  414 

Scholastic,  the,  507 

Scholasticism,  48,  85,  158,  211,  234- 
258;  the  nature  of,  234-235;  method 
of,  235-237;  culture,  237-238;  uni- 
versities, 240-244;  the  old  and  the 
new,  256-258 

Schonberg,  Arnold,  499 

Schoolmen,  the,  69,  259,  261 

Schopenhauer,  Arthur,  23,  73,  256,  516, 

517,  583 

Schumann,  Robert,  498 
Schumpcter,  Joseph,  415 

Science,  Greek,  136-137,  142-143; 
Latin,  165-167,  168-170;  modern, 
277-279,  289-313;  the  value  of, 
291-293;  and  citizenship,  292-293; 
popular,  613-615;  and  invention, 
614 

Science  News  Letter,  614 

Scientific  method,  modern,  289-313 

Scientific  paradox,  the,  303-304 

Scott,  Walter,  384,  385 

Scotus  Erigena,  236 

Scriabin,  501 

Sculpture,  and  civilization,  485-487; 
Gothic,  486*;  modern,  487-488 

"Second  Empire,**  187-188 

Seneca,  164,  166,  168 

Senior,  Nassau  William,  407 

Septuagcnt,  the,  118 

Serra,  Antonio,  405 

Services,  feudal,  228 

Seven  Deadly  Values,  527 

Seven  Scholars  of  Chang-an,  572 

Sex,  as  a  value,  533-534 

Shaftesbury,  A.  A,  C.,  371 

Shakespeare,  68,  79,  304,  504,  508, 

518,  553,  556,  565 
Shang  period,  the,  571 
Shapley,  Harlow,  3 


INDEX 


669 


Shaw,  George  Bernard,  73,  201,  247, 

387,  535»  554 
Shelley,  Percy  B.,  128,  384 
Shen-ming,  571 
Shcphard,  Arthur,  502 
Sherman  anti-trust  law,  597 
Sibelius,  Jean,  502 
Sibylline  Oracle,  the,  162 
Sidgwick,  Henry,  371 
Signac,  494 

Simocatta-Thcophylactus,  573 
Sismondi,  Sismonde  de,  413 
Skepticism,  Gallic,  550 
Skplastikps,  234 
Skyline,  the  American,  611-612 
Skyscraper,  the  American,  483,  485 
Slavery,  Greek,  147-148 
Smith,  Adam,  372,  373,  406-407,  587 
Social  conception  of  life,  368-394 
Social  contract,  the,  352,  360-362 
Social   creed,    of   Protestantism,    477- 

479 

Social  Gospel,  the,  453,  476-477 
Social  ideals,  in  literature,  384-391 
Social  science,  304-306;  376-378 
Socialism,    187,    366-367;    Christian, 

47^477 

Socialists,  73,  410-412 
Socialization,  of  life,  379-38°;  of  work, 

380-382;  of  morality,  383 
Sociology,  modern,  376-377 
Socrates,  63,  83,  ,87,  149,  192,  203, 

206,  256,  313,  3I4»  3i8,  334>  473* 

539»  566,  627 

Soil,  the,  427-428;  see  also  Agriculture 
Solar  system,  the,  1-2 
Solomon,  114-116 
Solomon's  Temple,  115-116 
Solon,  134 

Sophists,  the,  83,  334 
Sophocles,  144,  155,  *93»  34^ 
Sorrows  of  Wcrther,  The,  556,  583 
Soul,  problem  of  the,  323-324 
Soviet,  the,  346,  294 
Sovietism,  and  Caesarism,  647-648 
Space-time  continuum,  the,  308-309 
Spanish  culture,  558-560 
Spanish  War,  the,  598 
Sparta,  34**  34» 
Speech,  parts  of,  37 
Speed,  as  a  value,  518-529 
Spencer,  Herbert,  58,  375»  4^5*  5^7» 

#34 
Spengler,  Oswald*  475i  548  note*  &>3» 

640  ci  scq. 
Spenser,  Edmund,  553 


Spieltrieb,  and  art,  31-32 
Spinning  jenny,  the,  434 
Spinoza,  Benedict,  22,  256,  283,  325, 

326,  355,  455-45<5,  457,  469 
Spiral  method,  in  history,  633,  638- 

639 

Stabat  Mater,  237 
Stalin,  Josef,  367 
Standard  Oil  Company,  597 
State,  Church  and,  174,  219-221;  the 

best,    344;    Chinese    conception    of, 

579;  sec  also  Politics 
State  of  Nature,  the,  352~354»  355»  35^, 

357>  358-359.  360,  363,  364,  369, 

383 

Steam,  435-43^ 
Steam  engine,  the,  29 
Steamboat,  the,  440-441 
Steel,  437-438 

Stendhal-Beyle,  H.»  390,  537 
Stcphenson,   George,   437,   439 
Stcuart,  Sir  James,  405 
Stevens,  Alfred,  487 
Stevens,  John,  446 
Stirner,  Max,  247,  248,  391,  392 
Stoicism,  209-210,  406,  516;  Roman, 

164 

Stoics,  the,  63,  128,  347^  370,  514 
Storm  and  Stress  period,  555 
Strabo,  573 

Strauss,  David  F.,  463 
Strauss,  Richard,  500,  501 
Stravinsky,  Igor,  501,  502 
Strindberg,  August,  387 
Sudden  Mutations,  248 
Sudcrmann,  Hermann,  386,  389 
Suetonius,  179  note,  183 
Sun,  the,  i,  2 
Sun  Yat-scn,  588 
Sung  period,  the,  572 
Swabcnsplegcl,  216 
Symbolism,  French,  88,  379,  387;  in 

painting,  498 
Sympathy,  the  ideal  of,  371-374 

Tacitus,  183 

Taft,  Lorado,  488 

Tagore,  Rabindranatih,  592,  594,  595 

Tai  Tsung,  emperor,  576 

Talleyrand,  C.  M,  389 

Tang  dynasty,  the,  571 

Tang  Tai  Tsuag,  575 

Tic,  the,  577»  580 

Tfo  Teh  King,  the,  580 

Taoism,  513,  582 

Tatiwig,  F,  W;»  417 


670 


INDEX 


Teasdale,  Sara,  508 

Tel-el- Amarna  tablets,  104 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  185, 189,  385 

Terence,  155 

Terrestrial  point  of  view,  4-5 

Thales,  136,  318 

Thatcher,  and  McNeal,  218  note,  219 

note,  221  note,  223  note 
Theodosius  I,  174,  576 
Theophrastus,  143 
Thesis-drama,  the,  386-387 
Thirty  Years'  War,  555 
Thomas,  S.  G.,  437 
Thorndike,  Lynn,  437 
Thorwaldsen,  Bertel,  487 
Thucydides,  127  note,  144,  148,  156 
Tidal  conception  of  the  solar  system,  2 
Tiele,  Cornelius  P.,  474 
Tindal,  Matthew,  456,  457,  459 
Titian,  265,  489,  547 
Toland,  John,  456,  457,  458 
Toleration,  free  thought  and,  456-458 
Tolstoi,   Count  Leo,    189,    201,    583, 

647 

Tool-making,  13-14 

Torguafo  Tasso,  556,  583 

Totemism,  39-41 

Town,  fief  and,  230-231 

Townshend,  Charles,  428 

Tragedy,  Greek,  154-156 

Treaty,  of  Locarno,  606;  of  St.  Ger- 
main, 604;  of  Trianon,  604;  of  Ver- 
sailles, 604 

Trends,  periods  and,  625-626 

Trilobites,  9 

Triviufn,  the,  243 

Truce  of  God,  the,  217-218 

Truths,  facts  and,  631-632 

Tschaikowsky,  Peter,  563 

Tull,  Jethro,  427-428 

Turgenev,   Ivan,   30,   386,   390,   562, 

5^4 

Turkish  Empire,  the,  592 
Turner,  Joseph  M.  W.,  489,  494,  496 
Twain,  Mark,  568 
Tylor,  Sir  Edward  B.,  41,  43,  475 

Unam  Sanctam,  220 
United  States,  Constitution  o£,  207 
"  United  States  of  India,"  594 
Unity,  of  things,  301-303 
Universe,  size  of  the,  3-4 
Universities,  the  rise  of,  240-242 
Utttcrmeyer,  Louis,  507,  508 
Upanishads,  the,  99,  583 
Urban  life  618-620 


Value,  and  energy,  511;  oriental  con- 
ception of,  513-514;  Christian,  515; 
modern  theories  of,  516-517;  and 
human  life,  519-520;  definition  of, 
520-522;  as  pleasure,  522-523;  and 
desire,  523-524;  and  desiderata,  524- 
525 

Vandals,  174 

Van  Dyck,  Anthony,  265 

Van  Gogh,  494,  496 

Varro,  167,  243 

Vassal,  lord  and,  224-226 

Veblen,  Thorstein,  418 

Vecchio,  549 

Vcdanta,  the,  318,  583 

Velasquez,  265,  560 

Verrocchio,  26*5 

Vertcbrata,  91 

Vespasian,  331 

Vestal  Virgins,  160,  178 

Vico,  Giambatista,  58,  549 

Vigny,  Alfred  de,  109 

Virgil,  159,  182,  543,  573 

Vitrivius,  169 

Voltaire,  90-91,  92,  95,  579 

Wagner,  Richard,  388,  498,  543,  625 

Waley,  Arthur,  583 

Walras,  Leon,  415 

Walton,  Edna  Lou,  509  note 

War,  see  World  War 

Warburton,  Samuel,  456 

Ward,  Lester,  376 

Wars  of  the  Lord,  The  Book  of  the, 

113 

Wars  of  the  Roses,  553 
Watson,  John,  476 
Weber,  Max,  61,  271-273 
Weiss,  A.  P,,  59 
Wells,  H.  G.»  201,  205,  629 
Werturtheil,  511 
Wesley,  John,  273 
West,  the,  57,  59,  561 
Westinghousc,  George,  446 
Westminster,  statutes  of,  431 
Whcelock,  John  Hall,  583 
White,  Andrew  D.»  465 
Whitman,  Walt,  504 
Wieser,  Friedrich  von,  416 
William  of  Champeaux,  341,  242,  344, 

245 

William  of  Occam,  236 
William  of  Rubruquis,  576 
Williams,  Roger,  aai 
Winckelman,  J,  J,»  135 
Wolfram  von  £scheobtc&»  337 


INDEX 


Women,  Athenian,  147;  the  status  of, 
616-617;  poets,  508 

Wool  worth  Building,  the,  484,  612 

Work,  culture  and,  92-93;  socializa- 
tion of,  380-382 

World  Court,  the,  609 

World  War,  the,  52,  246,  386,  444, 
483,  510,  520,  534,  588,  591,  596, 
598,  602,  607,  627,  629,  646,  652 

Wright,  Orville  and  Wilbur,  597 

Wu-ti,  emperor,  574 

Wylie,  Elinor,  508 


Xenophon,  87,  108,  395,  473 

Yi-King,  the,  637-638,  652-653 

Yogins,  256 

Youth,  as  a  value,  534-535 

Zend  Avesta,  the,  474 

Zeno,  209,  514;  the  Porch  of,  347 

Zeus,  129 

Zola,  Emile,  386 

Zollvcrein,  445 

Zubar£n,  560 


128969